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Presented    byWiO -"TtcA-^^,  'J^.r^ZDvAVe^  "3)7S, 


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Division 


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Section  ■■f.-.\...±..<. :^*'\ 

>  /    r  * 


THE    LAST   DAY 


LORD'S  PASSION. 


OUK   LORD'S   LIFE   0:N^  EARTH. 


BY   THE 
V 

REV.  WILLIAM  HANNA,  D.D.,  LL.D. 


In  Six  Volumes,  viz. 

I,  Earlier  Years $1.50 

II.  Ministry  in  Galilee 1.50 

III.  Close  op  the  Ministry 1.50 

IV.  Passion  Week 1.50 

V.  Last  Day  of  Our  Lord's  Passion 1.50 

VI.  Forty  Days  after  the  Resurrection    .     .    .  1.50 


ROBERT    CARTER    AND    BROTHERS, 

New  York. 


THE   LAST   DAY 


OUR    LORD'S    PASSION. 


BY   THE 


REY.  WILLIAM  HANNA,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

Author  of  "  The  Earlier  Years  of  Our  LoriVs  Life  on  Earth,''''  "  The  Forty  Days 
after  Our  Lord's  Resurrection,"  Sfc. 


NEW     YORK: 
ROBERT    CARTER   AND    BROTHERS, 

530,  Bkoadway. 

1870. 


Cambridge :  Presswork  by  John  Wilson  and  Son. 


PREFACE. 

This  volume  contains  a  narrative  of  all  the 
incidents  in  the  last  day  of  our  Lord's  suffer- 
ing life ;  following  him  from  the  an  est  in  the 
garden  to  the  burial  in  Joseph's  sepulchre.  It 
is  made  up  of  lectures  written  in  the  course  of 
ordinary  preparation  for  the  pulpit.  By  means 
of  the  best  critical  helps,  the  writer  was,  in 
the  first  instance,  at  pains  to  read  aright  and 
harmonize  the  accounts  given  by  the  different 
Evangelists.  Out  of  them  he  has  endeavored  to 
construct  a  continuous  and  expanded  narrative, 
intended  to  bring  out,  as  vividly  as  possible, 
not  only  the  sequence  of  the  incidents,  but  the 
characters,  motives,  and  feelings  of  the  different 
actors  and  spectators  in  the  events  described. 
He  has  refrained  from  all  critical  or  doctrinal 
discussions  as  alien  from  the    object   he  had    in 


VI  PREFACE. 

view  ;  nor  has  he  thought  it  necessary  to  bur- 
den the  following  pages  with  references  to  all 
the  authorities  consulted.  The  English  reader 
will  find  in  the  writings  of  Alford,  Stier,  or 
Ellicott,  the  warrant  for  most  of  those  readings 
of  the  original  and  inspired  records  upon  which 
the  following  narrative  is  based. 

EdinbubgH,  May  3,  1862. 


CONTENTS. 


FAQI 

The  Betrayal  and  the  Betrayer, 9 

The  Denials,   Repentance,    and    Restoration   op    St. 

Peter, 36 

The  Trial  before  the  Sanhedrim, 63 

Christ's  First  Appearance  before  Pilate, 90 

Christ's  Appearance  before  Herod, 114 

Christ's  Second  Appearance  before  Pilate 139 

The  Daughters  op  Jerusalem  Weeping 169 

The  Penitent  Thiep, 195 

The  Mother  op  our  Lord 228 

The  Darkness  and  the  Desertion, 254 

"It  is  Finished," 215 

The  Attendant  Miracles, 297 

The  Physical  Cause  op  the  Death  op  Christ, 323 

The  Burial, 351 

Appendix, 369 


I. 

"  The  night  on  which  he  was  betrayed" 
— that  long,  sleepless,  checkered,  troubled 
night — the  last  night  of  our  Lord's  suffering 
life — that  one  and  only  night  in  which  we 
can  follow  him  throughout,  and  trace  his 
footsteps  from  hour  to  hour, — through  what 
strange  vicissitudes  of  scene  and  incident, 
of  thought  and  feeling,  did  our  Saviour  on 
that  night  pass !  The  meeting  in  the  upper 
chamber,  the  washing  of  the  disciples'  feet, 
the  keeping  of  the  Hebrew  passover  ;  the 
cloud  that  gathered  round  his  brow,  the  sad 
warnings  to  Peter,  and  the  terrible  ones  to 
Judas ;    the  institution  of  his  own    Supper, 

*  Mattliew  xxvL  47-56;  Mark  xiv  43-50;  Luke  xxii.  47-53; 
John  xviii.  2-11. 

1* 


10  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 

the  tender  consolatory  discourse,  the  sub- 
lime intercessory  prayer ;  the  Garden ;  its 
brief  and  broken  pra^^ers,  its  deep  and  aw- 
ful agony ;  the  approach  of  the  High  Priest's 
band,  the  arrest,  the  desertion  by  all,  the 
denials  by  one ;  the  private  examination 
before  Annas,  the  public  arraignment  before 
the  Sanhedrim;  the  silence  as  to  all  minor 
charges,  the  great  confession,  the  final  and 
formal  condemnation  to  death  ;  —  all  these 
between  the  time  that  the  sun  of  that  Thurs- 
day evening  set,  and  the  sun  of  Friday 
morning  rose  upon  Jerusalem.  We  are  all, 
perhaps,  more  familiar  with  the  incidents  of 
the  first  half  of  that  night,  than  with  those 
of  the  second.  Of  its  manifold  sorrows,  the 
agony  in  the  Garden  formed  the  fitting 
climax.  Both  outwardly  and  inwardly,  it 
was  to  the  great  Sufferer  its  hour  of  darkest, 
deepest  midnight.  Let  us  join  him  now  as 
he  rises  from  his  last  struggle  in  Gethsemane, 
and  follow  till  we  see  him  laid  in  Joseph's 
sepulchre. 

The  sore  amazement  is  past.     Some  voice 


THE    BETRAYER.  11 

has  said  to  the  troubled  waters  of  his  spirit, 
Peace,  be  still !  Instead  of  the  stir  and 
tumult  of  the  soul,  there  is  a  calm  and  digni- 
fied composure,  which  never  once  forsakes 
him,  till  the  same  strange  internal  agony  once 
more  comes  upon  him  on  the  cross.  "  Rise," 
says  Jesus,  as  for  the  third  and  last  time  he 
bends  over  the  slumbering  disciples  in  the 
Garden,  "  Rise,  let  us  be  going.  Lo,  he  that 
betrayeth  is  at  hand !"  Wakeful  as  he  has 
been  whilst  the  others  were  sleeping,  has  he 
heard  the  noise  of  approaching  footsteps  ? 
has  he  seen  the  shadows  of  advancing  forms, 
the  flickering  light  of  torch  and  lantern  glim- 
mering through  the  olive  leaves  ?  It  was 
not  necessary  that  eye  or  ear  should  give  him 
notice  of  the  approach.  He  knew  all  that 
the  betrayer  meditated  when,  a  few  hours 
before,  he  had  said  to  him,  "  That  thou  doest, 
do  quickly."  He  had  seen  and  known,  as 
though  he  had  been  present,  the  immediate 
resort  of  Judas  to  those  with  whom  he  had 
so  recently  made  his  unhallowed  bargain, 
telling  them  that  the  hour  had  come  for  car 


12  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 

ryirig  tlie  projected  arrangement  into  execu- 
tion, and  that  he  was  quite  sure  that  Jesus, 
as  his  custom  all  that  week  had  been,  would 
g.o  out  to  Gethsemane  so  soon  as  the  meeting 
in  the  upper  chamber  had  broken  up,  and 
that  there  they  could  easily  and  surely,  with- 
out any  fear  of  popular  disturbance,  lay  hold 
of  him.  The  proposal  was  hailed  and  adopt- 
ed with  eager  haste,  for  there  was  no  time  to 
be  lost, — they  had  but  a  single  day  for  action 
left.  The  band  for  seizing  him  was  instantly 
assembled — "  a  great  multitude,"  quite  need- 
lessly numerous,  even  though  resistance  had 
been  contemplated  by  the  eleven;  a  band 
curiously  composed, — some  Roman  soldiers 
in  it  from  the  garrison  of  Fort  Antonia,  ex- 
cited on  being  summoned  to  take  part  in  a 
midnight  enterprise  of  some  difiiculty  and 
danger;  the  captain  of  the  Temple  guard, 
accompanied  by  some  subordinates,  private 
servants  of  Annas  and  Caiaphas,  the  High 
Priests,  with  some  members  even  of  the  San- 
hedrim among  them  ;*   a  band  curiously  ac« 

*  See  Luke  xxii.  52. 


THE    BETRAYER.  13 

coutred, — with  staves  as  well  as  swords,  with 
lanterns  and  torches,  that,  clear  though  the 
night  was — the  moon  being  at  the  full,*  they 
might  hunt  theu*  victim  out  through  all  the 
shady  retreats  of  the  olive  gardens,  and  pre- 
vent the  possibility  of  escape.  Stealthily 
they  cross  the  Kedron,  with  Judas  at  their 
head,  and  come  to  the  very  place  where  all 
this  while  Jesus  has  been  enduring  his  great 
agony.  Yes ;  this  is  the  place  where  Judas 
tells  them  they  will  be  so  sure  to  find  him. 
Now,  then,  is  the  time  for  the  lanterns  and 
the  torches.  They  are  saved  the  search. 
Stepping  out  suddenly  into  the  clear  moon- 
light, Jesus  himself  stands  before  them,  and 
calmly  says,  "  Whom  seek  ye  ?"  There  are 
many  in  that  band  who  know  him  well 
enough,  but  there  is  not  one  of  them  who  has 
courage  to  answer — "  Thee."  A  creeping 
awe  is  already  on  their  spirits.  They  leave 
it  to  others,  to  those  who  know  him  but  by 
name,   to  say,   Jesus   of  Nazareth.      Jesus 

*  We  know  it  was  so  from  the  day  of  the  month  on  which  the 
P.ossover  waa  celebrated. 


14  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 

says  to  them,  I  am  he ;  and  as  soon  as  he 
has  said  it,  they  go  backward,  and  fall  every 
one  to  the  ground.  Has  some  strange  sight 
met  their  eye,  has  Jesus  been  momentaril} 
transfigured  as  on  the  Mount,  have  some 
stray  beams  from  the  concealed  glory  burst 
forth  upon  them,  or  is  it  some  inward  terror 
shot  by  a  hand  invisible  through  their 
hearts  ?  Whatever  the  spell  be  that  has 
stripped  them  of  all  strength,  and  driven 
them  backwards  to  the  ground,  it  lasts  but 
for  a  brief  season.  He  who  suddenly  laid  it 
on  as  quickly  lifts  it  off.  But  for  that  short 
time,  what  a  picture  does  the  scene  present ! 
Jesus  standing  in  the  quiet  moonhght,  calmly 
«vaiting  till  the  postrate  men  shall  rise  again ; 
or  turning,  perhaps,  a  pensive  look  upon  his 
disciples  cowering  under  the  shade  of  the 
olive-trees,  and  gazing  with  wonder  at  the 
sight  of  that  whole  band  lying  flat  upon  the 
ground.  For  a  moment  or  two,  how  still  it 
is  !  you  could  have  heard  the  falling  of  an 
olive-leaf.  But  now  the  spell  is  over,  and 
they  rise.     The  Roman  soldier  starts  to  his 


THE    BETRAYER.  15 

feet  again,  as  more  than  half  ashamed,  not 
knowing  what  should  have  so  frightened  him. 
The  Jewish  officer  gathers  up  his  scattered 
strength,  wondering  that  it  had  not  gone  for 
ever.  Again  the  quiet  question  comes  from 
the  lips  of  Jesus,  Whom  seek  ye?  They 
say  to  him,  Jesus  of  Nazareth.  Jesus  an- 
swers, "  I  have  told  you  that  I  am  he.  If 
therefore  ye  seek  me,  let  these  go  their  way  : 
that  the  saying  might  be  fulfilled  which  he 
spake.  Of  them  which  thou  hast  given  me  I 
have  lost  none." 

Perfectly  spontaneous,  then,  on  the  part 
of  our  Divine  Redeemer,  was  the  delivering 
of  himself  up  into  the  hands  of  his  enemies. 
He  who  by  a  word  and  look  sent  that  rough 
hireling  band  reeling  backwards  to  the  ground, 
how  easily  could  he  have  kept  it  there  ;  or 
how  easily,  though  they  had  been  standing 
all  around  him,  could  he  have  passed  out 
through  the  midst  of  them,  every  eye  so 
blinded  that  it  could  not  see  him,  every  arm 
so  paralyzed  that  it  could  not  touch  him  ? 
Judas   knew  how  in  such  a  manner  he  had 


16  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 

previously  escaped.  He  must  have  had  a 
strong  impression  that  it  would  not  be  so 
easy  a  thing  to  accomplish  the  arrest,  when 
he  told  the  men,  "  Whomsoever  I  shall  kiss, 
that  same  is  he  ;  take  him,  and  hold  him  fast." 
Take  him  ;  hold  him  !  it  will  only  be  if  he 
please  to  be  taken  and  to  be  held  that  they 
will  have  any  power  to  do  it.  This  perfect 
freedom  from  all  outward  compulsion,  this 
entirely  voluntary  surrender  of  himself  to  suf- 
fering and  death,  enter  as  necessary  elements 
into  the  great  Atonement.  And  is  not  its  es- 
sential element — its  being  made  for  others — 
shadowed  forth  in  this  outward  incident  of 
the  Redeemer's  life  ?  "  Take  me,"  he  said, 
"  but  let  these  go  their  way."  It  was  to 
throw  a  protecting  shield  over  this  little  flock, 
that  he  put  forth  his  great  power  over  that 
mixed  multitude  before  him,  and  made  them 
feel  how  wholly  they  were  within  his  grasp. 
It  was  to  acquire  for  the  time  such  a  mastery 
over  them  that  they  should  consent  to  let  his 
disciples  go.  It  was  no  part  of  their  purpose 
beforehand  to  have  done  so.     They  proved 


THE   BETRAYER.  17 

this,  when,  the  temporary  impression  over, 
they  seized  the  3'oung  man  by  the  way,  whom 
curiosity  had  drawn  out  of  the  city,  whom 
they  took  to  be  one  of  his  disciples,  and  who 
with  difficulty  escaped  out  of  their  hands. 

"  Take  me,  but  let  these  go  their  way." 
John  saw,  in  the  freedom  and  safety  of  the 
disciples  thus  secured,  a  fulfilment  of  the 
Lord's  own  saying  in  the  prayer  of  the  Sup- 
per-chamber, "  Them  that  thou  gavest  me  I 
have  kept,  and  none  of  them  is  lost."  We 
can  not  imagine  that  the  beloved  disciple  saw 
nothing  beyond  protection  from  common 
earthly  danger  in  the  expression  which  he 
quotes  ;  but  that  he  saw,  in  the  very  manner 
in  which  that  kind  of  protection  had  been 
extended,  a  type  or  emblem  of  the  higher 
and  spiritual  deliverance  that  Christ  has  ac- 
complished for  his  people  by  his  deliverance 
unto  death.  Freedom  for  us,  by  his  suffering 
himself  to  be  bound ;  safety  for  us,  by  the 
sacrifice  of  himself;  life  for  us,  by  the  death 
which  he  endured  :  have  we  not  much  of  the 
very  soul  and  spirit  of  the  atonement  in  those 


18  THE   BETRAYAL   AND 

few  words,  "  Take  me,  but  let  these  go  their 
way  ?"  It  is  the  spiritual  David,  the  great 
good  Shepherd,  saying,  "  Let  thine  hand  be 
laid  upon  me  ;  but  as  for  these  sheep,  not, 
0  Lord  my  God,  on  them." 

Judas  stood  with  those  to  whom  Jesus  said, 
Whom  seek  ye  ?  Along  with  them  he  reeled 
back  and  fell  to  the  ground.  Along  with 
them  he  speedily  regained  his  standing  pos- 
ture, and  was  a  listener  as  the  Lord  said,  I 
have  told  you  that  I  am  he  ;  inviting  them  to 
do  with  him  as  they  wished.  There  is  a 
pause,  a  hesitation ;  for  who  will  be  the  first 
to  lay  hand  upon  him  ?  Judas  will  relieve 
them  of  any  lingering  fear.  He  will  show 
them  how  safe  it  is  to  approach  this  Jesus. 
Though  the  stepping  forth  of  Christ,  and  the 
questions  and  answers  which  followed,  have 
done  away  with  all  need  of  the  preconcerted 
signal,  he  will  yet  go  through  all  that  he  had 
engaged  to  do  ;  or,  perhaps,  it  is  almost  a 
mechanical  impulse  upon  which  he  acts,  for 
he  had  fixed  on  the  thing  that  he  was  to  do 
toward   accomplishing   the    arrest;    he    had 


THE    BETRAYER.  19 

conned  his  part  well  beforehand,  and  braced 
himself  up  to  go  through  with  it.  Hence, 
when  the  time  for  action  comes,  he  stops  not 
to  reflect,  but  lets  the  momentum  of  his  pre- 
determined purpose  carry  him  along.  He 
salutes  Jesus  with  a  kiss.  If  ever  a  righteous 
indignation  might  legitimately  be  felt,  surely 
it  was  here.  And  if  that  burning  sense  of 
wrong  had  gone  no  further  in  its  expression 
than  simply  the  refusal  of  such  a  salutation, 
would  not  Christ  have  acted  with  unimpeach- 
able propriety  ?  But  it  is  far  above  this  level 
that  Jesus  will  now  rise.  He  will  give  an 
example  of  gentleness,  of  forbearance,  of  long- 
suffering  kindness  without  a  parallel.  Jesus 
accepts  the  betrayer's  salutation.  He  does 
more.  He  says  a  word  or  two  to  this  de- 
luded man  ; — "  Friend,  wherefore  art  thou 
come  ?"  Is  it  possible  that  thou  canst  im- 
agine, after  all  that  passed  between  us  at  the 
supper-table,  that  I  am  ignorant  of  thy  pur- 
pose in  this  visit  ?  I  know  that  purpose  well ; 
thou  knowest  that  I  do  ;  if  not,  I  will  make 
a  last  attempt  to  make  thee  know  and  feel  it 


20  THE    BETRAYAL   AND 

now.  Thought  of,  cared  for,  warned  in  so 
many  ways,  art  thou  really  come  to  betray 
such  a  Master  as  I  have  ever  been  to  thee  ? 
But  though  thou  hast  made  up  thy  mind  to 
such  a  deed,  how  is  it  that  thou  choosest  such 
a  cloak  as  this  beneath  which  to  conceal  thy 
purpose  ?  The  deed  is  bad  enough  itself 
without  crowning  it  with  the  lie  of  the  hypo- 
crite,— "  Judas,  betrayest  thou  the  Son  of 
man  with  a  kiss  ?" — the  last  complaint  of 
wounded  love,  the  last  of  the  many  and  most 
touching  appeals  made  to  the  conscience  and 
heart  of  the  betrayer ;  rebuke  and  remon- 
strance in  the  words,  but  surely  their  tone  is 
one  more  of  pity  than  of  anger ;  surely  the 
wish  of  the  speaker  was  to  arrest  the  traitor, 
if  it  were  not  yet  too  late.  Had  Judas 
yielded  even  at  that  last  moment ;  with  a 
broken  and  a  contrite  heart  had  he  thrown 
himself  at  his  Master's  feet,  to  bathe  with 
tears  the  feet  of  him  whose  cheek  he  had  just 
polluted  with  his  unhallowed  kiss ;  looking 
up  through  those  tears  of  penitence,  had  he 
sought  mercy  of  the  Lord,  how  freely  would 


THE    BETRAYER.  21 

that  inercj  have  been  extended  to  him  !  who 
can  doubt  that  he  would  have  been  at  once 
forgiven  ?  But  he  did  not,  he  would  not 
yield  ;  and  so  on  he  went,  till  there  was  no- 
thing left  to  him  but  the  horror  of  that  re- 
morse which  dug  for  him  the  grave  of  the 
suicide. 

We  often  wonder,  as  we  read  his  story, 
how  it  was  ever  possible,  that,  in  the  face  of 
so  many,  such  explicit,  solemn,  affectionate 
appeals,  this  man  should  have  so  obstinately 
pursued  his  course.  We  should  wonder,  per- 
haps, the  less,  if  we  only  reflected  what  a 
blinding,  hardening  power  any  one  fixed  idea, 
any  one  settled  purpose,  any  one  dominant 
passion,  in  the  full  flush  and  fervor  of  its  as- 
cendency, exerts  upon  the  human  spirit ;  how 
it  blinds  to  consequences  that  are  then  staring 
us  in  the  very  face  ;  how  it  deadens  to  re- 
monstrances to  which,  in  other  circumstances, 
we  should  at  once  have  yielded  ;  how  it  car- 
ries us  o^'Cr  obstacles  that  at  other  times 
would  at  once  have  stopped  us ;  nay,  more, 
and  what  perhaps  is  the  most  striking  feature 


22  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 

of  the  whole,  how  the  very  interferences,  for 
which  otherwise  we  should  have  been  grate- 
ful, are  resented ;  how  the  very  appeals  in- 
tended and  fitted  to  arrest,  become  as  so  many 
goads  driving  us  on  the  more  determinedly 
upon  our  path.  So  it  was  with  Judas.  And 
let  us  not  think  that  we  have  in  him  a  mon- 
strous specimen  of  almost  superhuman  wick- 
edness. We  should  be  nearer  the  truth,  I 
suspect,  if  we  took  him  as  an  average  speci- 
men of  what  the  passion  of  avarice,  or  any 
like  passion,  when  once  it  has  got  the  mas- 
tery, may  lead  any  man  to  be  and  do.  For 
we  have  no  reason  to  believe  of  Judas,  that 
from  the  first  he  was  an  utter  reprobate.  Our 
Lord  we  scarcely  can  believe  would  have  ad- 
mitted such  a  man  to  the  number  of  the 
twelve.  Can  it  be  believed  of  him  that  when 
he  first  joined  himself  to  Jesus,  it  was  to 
make  gain  of  that  connexion  ?  There  was 
but  little  prospect  of  worldly  gain  in  following 
the  Nazarene.  Nor  can  we  fairly  attribute 
that  obstinacy  which  Judas  showed  in  the  last 
great  crisis  of  his  life,  to  utter  deadness  of 


THE    BETRAYER.  23 

conscience,  utter  hardness  of  heart.  The 
man  who  no  sooner  heard  the  death- sentence 
given  against  his  Master,  than — without  even 
waiting  to  see  if  it  would  be  executed — he 
rushed  before  the  men  by  whom  that  sentence 
had  been  pronounced — the  very  men  with 
whom  he  had  made  his  unholy  covenant,  from 
whom  he  had  got  but  an  hour  or  two  before 
the  price  of  blood — exclaiming  in  the  bitter- 
ness of  his  heart,  "  I  have  sinned,  in  that  I 
have  betrayed  innocent  blood ;" — the  man 
who  took  those  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  which 
his  itching  palm  had  so  longed  to  clutch,  but 
which  now  were  burning  like  scorching  lead 
the  hand  that  grasped  them,  and  flung  them 
ringing  on  the  temple  floor,  and  hurried  to  a 
lonely  field  without  the  city  walls  and  hanged 
himself,  dying  in  all  likelihood  before  his 
Master — ^let  us  not  think  of  him  that  he  was 
utterly  heartless — that  he  had  a  conscience 
seared  as  with  a  hot  iron. 

What,  then,  is  the  true  explanation  of  his 
character  and  career  ?  Let  us  assume  that, 
when  he  first  united  himself  to  Christ,  it  was 


24  THE   BETRAYAL    AND 

not  of  deliberate  design  to  turn  that  connex- 
ion into  a  source  of  profit.  He  found,  how- 
ever, as  time  run  on,  that  to  some  small  ex- 
tent it  could  be  so  employed.  The  little 
company  that  he  had  joined  had  chosen  him 
to  be  their  treasurer,  to  hold  and  to  dispense 
the  slender  funds  which  they  possessed. 
Those  who  are  fond  of  money,  as  he  was,  are 
generally  careful  in  the  keeping,  thrifty  in 
their  use  of  it.  Judas  had  those  faculties  in 
perfection,  and  they  won  for  him  that  office 
of  trust,  to  him  so  terribly  dangerous.  The 
temptation  was  greater  than  he  could  resist. 
He  became  a  pilferer  from  that  small  bag. 
Little  as  it  had  to  feed  upon,  his  passion 
grew.  It  grew,  for  he  had  no  higher  prin- 
ciple, no  better  feeling,  to  subdue  it.  It 
grew,  till  he  began  to  picture  to  himself  what 
untold  wealth  was  in  store  for  him  when  his 
Master  should  throw  off  that  reserve  and  dis- 
guise which  he  had  so  long  and  so  studiously 
preserved,  and  take  to  himself  his  power,  and 
set  up  his  kingdom — a  kingdom  which  he,  in 
common  with  all  the  apostles,  believed  was 


THE    BETRAYER.  25 

to  be  a  visible  and  temporal  one.  It  grew, 
till  delay  became  intolerable.  At  the  supper 
in  Bethany,  it  vexed  him  to  see  that  box  of 
ointment  of  spikenard  which  might  have  been 
sold  for  three  hundred  pence,  wasted  on  what 
seemed  to  him  an  idle  piece  of  premature  and 
romantic  homage.  It  vexed  him  still  more 
to  hear  his  Master  rebuke  the  initation  he 
had  displayed,  and  speak  now  once  again,  as 
he  had  been  doing  so  often  lately,  of  his 
death  and  burial,  as  if  the  splendid  vision  of 
his  kingdom  were  never  to  be  realized. 
Could  nothing  be  done  to  force  his  Master  on 
to  exercise  his  kingly  power  ?  These  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  who  hated  him  so  bitterly, 
desired  nothing  so  much  as  to  get  him  into 
their  hands.  If  once  they  did  so,  would  he 
not,  in  self-defence,  be  obliged  to  put  forth 
that  power  which  Judas  knew  that  he  pos- 
sessed ?  And  were  he  to  do  so,  things  could 
not  remain  any  longer  as  they  were.  The 
Passover — this  great  gathering  of  the  people 
— would  soon  go  past,  and  he,  Judas,  and  the 
rest,  have  to  resume  their  weary  journeyings 


!3 


26  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 


on  foot  throughout  Judea.  Thus  and  then  it 
was,  that,  in  all  likelihood,  the  thought 
flashed  into  the  mind  of  the  betrayer  to  go 
and  ask  the  chief  priests  what  they  would 
give  him  if  he  delivered  Jesus  into  their 
hands.  They  offered  him  thirty  pieces  of 
silver,  a  very  paltry  bribe — the  price  in 
the  old  Hebrew  code  of  a  slave  that  was 
gored  by  an  ox — ^less  than  <£5  of  our  money  ; 
— a  bribe  insufficient  of  itself  to  have  tempt- 
ed even  a  grossly  avaricious  man,  in  the  posi- 
tion in  which  Judas  was,  to  betray  his  Mas- 
ter, knowing  or  believing  that  it  was  unto 
death.  Why,  in  a  year  or  two  Judas  might 
have  realized  as  much  as  that  by  petty  pil- 
ferings  from  the  apostolical  bag.  But  this 
scheme  of  his  would  bring  his  Master  to  the 
test.  It  would  expedite  what,  to  his  cove- 
tous, ambitious  heart,  had  seemed  to  be  that 
slow  and  meaningless  course  to  a  throne  and 
kingdom  which  his  Master  had  been  pursu- 
ing. Not  suspecting  what  the  immediate 
and  actual  issue  was  to  be,  he  made  his  un- 
holy compact  with  the  High    Priests.      He 


THE    BETRAYER.  27 

made  it  on  the  Wednesday  of  the  Passion 
week.  Next  evening  he  sat  with  Jesus  in 
the  supper-chamber.  lie  found  himself  de- 
tected ;  more  than  one  terrible  warning  was 
sounded  in  his  ears.  Strange,  you  may 
think,  that  instead  of  stopping  him  in  his 
course,  these  warnings  suggested,  perhaps  for 
the  first  time,  the  thought  that  what  he  had 
engaged  to  do  might  be  done  that  very  night. 
The  words,  ''  What  thou  doest  do  quickly," 
themselves  gave  eagerness  and  firmness  to 
his  purpose ;  for,  after  all,  though  Jesus 
seemed  for  the  time  so  much  displeased, — let 
this  scheme  but  prosper, — ^let  the  kingdom  be 
set  up,  and  would  he  not  be  sure  to  forgive 
the  oft'ence  that  had  hastened  so  happy  a 
result  ? 

Have  we  any  grounds  for  interpreting  in 
this  way  the  betrayal  ?  Are  we  right  in  at- 
tributing such  motives  to  Judas  ?  If  not, 
then  how  are  we  to  explain  his  surprise  when 
he  saw  his  Master,  though  still  possessing  all 
his  wonderful  power,  as  he  showed  by  the 
healing  of  the  servant's  ear,  allow  himself  to 


28  THE    BETRAYAL   AND 

be  bound  and  led  away  like  a  felon  ?  How 
are  we  to  explain  the  consternation  of  Judas 
when  he  learned  that  though  Jesus  publicly, 
before  the  Sanhedrim,  claimed  to  be  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  God,  the  King  of  Israel, 
yet,  instead  of  there  being  any  acquiescence 
in  that  claim,  a  universal  horror  was  ex- 
pressed, and  on  the  very  ground  of  his  mak- 
ing it,  he  was  doomed  to  the  death  of  a  blas- 
phemer ?  Then  it  was,  when  all  turned  out 
so  differently  from  what  he  had  anticipated, 
that  the  idea  of  his  having  been  the  instru- 
ment of  his  Master's  death  entered  like  iron 
into  the  soul  of  Judas.  Then  it  was,  that, 
overwhelmed  with  nameless,  countless  dis- 
appointments, vexations,  self-reproaches,  his 
very  living  to  see  his  Master  die  became  in- 
tolerable to  him,  and  in  his  despair  he  flung 
his  ill-used  life  away. 

Accept  such  solution,  and  the  story  of  the 
betrayal  of  our  Lord  becomes  natural  and  con- 
sistent ;  reject  it,  and  have  you  not  difficulties 
in  your  way  not  to  be  got  over  by  any  amount 
of  villany  that  you  may  attribute  to  the  trai- 


THE    liETRAYER.  29 

tor  ?  But  does  not  this  solution  take  down 
the  crime  of  Judas  from  that  pinnacle  o^ 
almost  superhuman  and  unapproachable  guilt 
on  which  many  seem  inclined  to  place  it  ?  It 
does  ;  but  it  renders  it  all  the  more  available 
as  a  beacon  of  warning  to  us  all.  For  if  we 
are  right  in  the  idea  we  have  formed  of  the 
character  and  conduct  of  Judas,  there  have 
been  many  since  his  time,  there  may  be  many 
still,  in  the  same  way,  and  from  the  operation 
of  the  same  motives,  betrayers  of  Christ.  For 
everj^where  he  is  a  Judas,  with  whom  his 
worldly  interests,  his  worldly  ambition,  pre- 
vail over  his  attachment  to  Christ  and  to 
Christ's  cause  ;  who  joins  the  Christian  so- 
ciety, it  may  not  be  to  make  gain  thereby, — 
but  who,  when  the  occasion  presents  itself, 
scruples  not  to  make  what  gain  he  can  of  that 
connexion ;  who,  beneath  the  garb  of  the 
Christian  calling,  pursues  a  dishonest  traffic  ; 
who,  when  the  gain  and  the  godliness  come 
into  collision,  sacrifices  the  godliness  for  the 
gain.  How  many  such  Judases  the  world 
has  seeUj  how  much  of  that  Judas  spirit  there 


30  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 

may  be  in  our  own  hearts,  I  leave  it  to  your 
knowledge  of  yourselves  and  your  knowledge 
of  the  world  to  determine. 

Let  us  now  resume  our  narrative  of  the  ar- 
rest. Whatever  lingering  reluctance  to  touch 
Christ  had  been  felt,  that  kiss  of  Judas  re- 
moved. They  laid  their  hands  upon  him  in- 
stantly thereafter,  grasping  him  as  if  he  were 
a  vulgar  villain  of  the  highway,  and  binding 
him  after  the  merciless  fashion  of  the  Romans. 
This  is  what  one,  at  least,  of  his  followers 
can  not  bear.  Peter  springs  forth  from  the 
darkness,  draws  his  sword,  and  aims  at  the 
head  of  the  first  person  he  sees  ;  who,  hoAV- 
ever,  bends  to  the  side,  and  his  ear  only  is 
lopped  off.  To  Christ  an  unwelcome  act  of 
friendship.  It  ruffles  his  composure,  it  im- 
pairs the  dignity  of  his  patience.  For  the 
first  and  only  time  a  human  creature  suffers 
that  he  may  be  protected.  The  injury  thus 
done  he  must  instantly  repair.  They  \m\e 
his  hand  within  their  hold,  when,  gently  say- 
ing to  them,  "  Suffer  ye  thus  far,"  he  releases 
it   from   their  grasp,  and,  stretching  it  out. 


THE    BETRAYER.  31 

touches  the  bleeding  ear,  and  heals  it : — the 
only  act  of  healing  wrought  on  one  who  nei- 
ther asked  it  of  him,  nor  had  any  faith  in  his 
healing  virtue  ;  but  an  act  which  showed  how 
full  of  almighty  power  that  hand  was  which 
yet  gave  itself  up  to  ignominious  bonds. 
Then  said  Jesus  to  Peter,  "  Put  up  again  thy 
sword  into  his  place  :  for  all  they  that  take 
the  sword  shall  perish  with  the  sword.  Think- 
est  thou  that  I  can  not  now  pray  to  my 
Father,  and  he  shall  presently  give  me  more 
than  twelve  legions  of  angels  ?  But  how 
then  shall  the  Scriptures  be  fulfilled,  that  thus 
it  must  be  ?  The  cup  which  my  Father  hath 
given  me,  shall  I  not  drink  it  ?"  He  was 
drinking  then,  even  at  that  time,  of  the  same 
cup  in  regard  to  which  he  had  been  praying 
in  the  Garden.  Not  only  his  agonies  in  Geth- 
semane  and  on  the  Cross,  but  all  his  griefs, 
internal  and  external,  were  ingredients  in  that 
cup  which,  for  us  and  for  our  salvation,  he 
took,  and  drank  to  the  very  dregs — a  cup 
put  by  his  Father's  hand  into  his,  and  by  him 
voluntarily  taken,  that  the  will  of  his  Father 


32  THE    BETRAYAL    AND 

might  be  clone,  and  that  the  Scriptures  might 
be  fulfilled.  All  this  about  the  cup,  and  his 
Father,  and  the  Scriptures,  spoken  for  the  in- 
struction and  reproof  of  Peter,  must  have 
sounded  not  a  little  strange  to  those  Chief 
Priests  and  scribes  and  elders  who  haA'e  come 
out  to  be  present,  at  least,  if  not  to  take  part 
in  the  apprehension,  and  who  are  now  stand- 
ing by  his  side.  But  for  them,  too,  there 
must  be  a  word,  to  show  them  that  he  is  after 
all  a  very  brother  of  our  race,  who  feels  as 
any  other  innocent  man  would  feel  if  bound 
thus,  and  led  away  as  a  malefactor.  "  And 
Jesus  said  unto  the  chief  priests,  and  captains 
of  the  temj)le,  and  the  elders,  which  were 
come  to  him,  Be  ye  come  out,  as  against  a 
thief,  with  swords  and  staves  ?  When  I  was 
daily  with  you  in  the  temple,  ye  stretched 
forth  no  hands  against  me  :  but  this  is  3'our 
hour,  and  the  power  of  darkness."  A  short 
hour  of  fancied  triumph  theirs  ;  the  powers 
of  darkness  permitted  for  a  short  season  to 
prevail :  but  beyond  that  hour,  light,  and  a 
full,  glorious,  eternal  triumph  his. 


THE    BETRAYER.  33 

"  Then  all  the  disciples  forsook  him  and 
fled."  That  utter  desertion  had  been  one  of 
the  incidents  of  this  night  of  sorrows  upon 
which  his  foreseeing  eye  had  already  fixed. 
"  The  hour  cometh/'  he  had  said  to  them  in 
the  upper  chamber,  "  yea,  is  now  come,  that 
ye  shall  be  scattered,  every  man  to  his  own, 
and  shall  leave  me  alone  :  and  yet  I  am  not 
alone,  because  the  Father  is  with  me."  It 
was  only  during  that  hurried  march  from  the 
Garden  to  the  judgment-hall  that  Jesus  was 
left  literally  and  absolutely  alone  :  not  one 
friendly  eye  upon  him  ;  not  one  friendly  arm 
within  his  reach.  But  this  temporary  soli- 
tude, was  it  not  the  type  of  the  inner,  deeper 
solitude,  in  which  his  whole  earthly  work  was 
carried  on  ? — not  the  solitude  of  the  hermit 
or  the  monk, — he  lived  ever  with  and  among 
his  fellow-men ;  not  the  solitude  of  pride, 
sullenly  refusing  all  sympathy  and  aid ;  not 
the  solitude  of  selfishness,  creating  around  its 
icy  centre  a  cold,  bleak,  barren  wilderness; 
not  the  solitude  of  sickly  sentimentality,  for- 
ever crj'ing  out  that  it  can  find  no  one  to  uu- 

2* 


34  THE    BETRAYAL   AND 

derstand  or  appreciate.  No  ;  but  the  solitude 
of  a  pure,  lioly,  heavenly  spnit,  into  all  whose 
deeper  thoughts  there  was  not  a  single  human 
being  near  him  or  around  him  who  could  en- 
ter ;  Avith  all  whose  deeper  feelings  there  was 
not  one  who  could  sympathize  ;  whose  truest, 
deepest  motives,  ends,  and  objects,  in  living 
and  dying  as  he  did,  not  one  could  compre- 
hend. Spiritually,  and  all  throughout,  the 
loneliest  man  that  ever  lived  was  Jesus  Christ. 
But  there  were  hours  when  that  solitude 
deepened  upon  his  soul.  So  was  it  in  the 
Garden,  when,  but  a  stone-cast  from  the  near- 
est to  him  upon  earth,  even  that  broken,  im- 
perfect sympathy  which  their  looking  on  him 
and  watching  with  him  in  his  great  sorrow 
might  have  supplied,  was  denied  to  him,  and 
an  angel  had  to  be  sent  from  heaven  to  cheer 
the  forsaken  one  of  earth.  So  was  it  uj^on 
the  cross,  in  that  dread  moment,  when  he 
could  no  longer  even  say,  "  I  am  not  aloae, 
for  my  Father  is  with  me  ;"  when  there  burst 
from  his  dying  lips  that  cry — a  cry  from  the 
darkest,    deepest,    dreariest    loneliness    int(» 


THE    BETRAYER.  35 

which  a  pure  and  holy  siDirit  ever  passed — 
"  My  God,  my  God  !  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?" 

Shall  we  pity  him, — ^in  that  lonely  life, 
these  lonely  sufferings,  that  lonely  death? 
Our  pity  he  does  not  ask.  Shall  we  sym- 
pathize with  him?  Our  sympathy  he  does 
not  need.  But  let  us  stand  by  the  brink  of 
that  deep  and  awful  gulf  into  which  he  de- 
scended, and  through  which  he  passed ;  and 
let  wonder,  awe,  gratitude,  love,  enter  into 
and  fill  all  our  hearts,  as  we  remember  that 
that  descent  and  that  passage  were  made  to 
redeem  our  souls  from  death,  and  to  open  up 
a  way  for  us  into  a  sinless  and  sorrowless 
heaveiL 


II. 

"When  tliey  saw  their  Master  bound  and 
borne  away,  all  the  disciples  forsook  him  and 
fled.  Two  of  them,  however,  recovered 
speedily  from  their  panic.  Foremost  now, 
and  bravest  of  them  all,  John  first  regained 
his  self-possession,  and  returning  on  his  foot- 
steps followed  the  band  which  conveyed  Je- 
sus to  the  residence  of  the  High  Priest. 
Coming  alone,  and  so  far  behind  the  others, 
he  might  have  found  some  difficulty  in  get- 
ting admission.  The  day  had  not  yet  dawned, 
and  at  so  early  an  hour,  and  upon  so  unusual 
an   occasion,  the   keeper  of  the    outer  door 

*  Matthew  xxvL  57-59,  69-T5;  Markxiv.  54,  55,  66-72;  Luke 
xxii.  54-62  ;  John  xviii.  15-27  ;  Mark  xvi.  7 ;  John  xxi.  15-17. 


THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    ETC.  6 1 

might  have  hesitated  to  admit  a  stranger ;  but 
John  had  some  acquaintance  with  the  domes- 
tics of  the  High  Priest,  and  so  got  entrance  ; 
an  entrance  which  Peter  might  not  haA^e  ven- 
tured to  ask,  or  asking,  might  have  failed  to 
get,  had  not  John  noticed  him  following  in 
the  distance,  and,  on  looking  back  as  he  en- 
tered, seen  him  standing  outside  the  door.  He 
went,  therefore,  and  spoke  to  the  porteress, 
who  at  his  instance  allowed  Peter  to  pass  in. 
The  two  disciples  made  their  way  together 
into  the  interior  quadrangular  hall,  at  the  up- 
per and  raised  end  of  which  Jesus  was  being 
cross-examined  by  Annas.  It  was  the  cold- 
est hour  of  the  night,  the  hour  that  precedes 
the  dawn,  and  the  servants  and  officers  had 
kindled  a  fire  in  that  end  of  the  hall  where 
they  were  gathered.  Peter  did  not  wish  to  be 
recognized,  and  the  best  way  he  thought  to 
preserve  his  incognito  was  to  put  at  once  the 
boldest  face  he  could  upon  it,  act  as  if  he  had 
been  one  of  the  capturing  band  and  had  as 
good  a  right  to  be  there  as  others  of  that 
mixed  company,  as  little  known  in  this  palace 


38  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    AND 

as  himself.  So  stepping  boldly  forward,  and 
sitting  down  among  the  men  who  were  warm- 
ing themselves  around  the  fire,  he  made  him- 
self one  of  them.  The  woman  who  kept  the 
door  was  standing  near.  The  strong  light  of 
the  kindling  fire,  falling  upon  that  group  of 
faces,  her  eye  fell  upon  Peter's.  That  surely, 
it  occurred  to  her  as  she  looked  at  it,  was  the 
face  of  the  man  whom  she  had  admitted  a  few 
minutes  ago,  of  whose  features  she  had  caught 
a  glimpse  as  he  passed  b}^  She  looks  again, 
and  looks  more  e.'jrnestly.^'  Her  first  impres- 
sion is  confirmed.  It  is  John's  friend ;  that 
Galilean's  friend  ;  some  friend  too,  no  doubt, 
of  this  same  Jesus.  She  says  so  to  a  com- 
panion by  her  side ;  but  not  satisfied  with 
that,  wondering,  perhaj)s,  at  the  way  in  which 
Peter  was  comporting  himself,  she  waits  till 
she  has  caught  his  eye,  and  going  up  to  him 
she  says  :  "  Art  not  thou  also  one  of  this 
man's  disciples  ?" — a  short,  abrupt,  peremp- 
tory, unexpected  challenge.  It  takes  Peter 
entirely  by  surprise.     It  throws  him  wholly 

*  See  John  xviiL.  17  ;  Mark  xiv.  67  ;  Luke  xxii.  56. 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  39 

off  Lis  guard.  There  they  are,  the  eyes  of  all 
those  men  around  now  turned  inquiringly 
upon  him ;  and  there  she  is — a  woman  he 
knows  nothing  of — perhaps  had  scarcely 
noticed  as  he  passed  quickly  through  the 
porch, — a  woman  who  can  know  nothing  about 
him,  }'et  putting  that  pert  question,  to  which, 
if  he  is  to  keep  up  the  character  he  has  as- 
sumed, there  must  be  a  quick  and  positive 
reply.  And  so  the  first  hasty  falsehood  es- 
capes his  lips.  The  woman,  however,  won't 
believe  him  when  he  says  that  he  does  not 
understand  her  question.  Both  to  himself  and 
to  others  around  her,  she  re-affirms  her  first 
belief.  Peter  has  to  back  his  first  falsehood 
by  a  second  and  a  third :  "  Woman,  I  am  not 
one  of  this  man's  disciples ;  I  know  him 
not." — Peter's  first  denial  of  his  Master. 

He  has  now  openly  committed  himself,  and 
he  must  carry  the  thing  through  as  best  he 
can.  He  is  not  at  ease,  however,  in  his  seat 
with  the  others  around  the  fire.  The  glare 
of  that  light  is  too  strong.  Those  prying  eyes 
disturb.     As   soon  as    conveniently  he    can, 


40     THE  DENIALS,  REPENTANCE,  AND 

without  attracting  notice,  he  rises  and  retires 
into  the  shadow  of  the  porch,  through  which 
in  entering  he  had  passed.  A  cock  now  crows 
without.  He  hears  but  heeds  it  not.  Per- 
haps he  might  have  done  so,  had  not  another 
woman — some  friend  in  all  likelihood  of  the 
porteress  with  whom  she  had  been  convers- 
ing— been  overheard  by  him  affirming  most 
positively,  as  she  pointed  him  out,  "  This  fel- 
low also  was  with  Jesus  of  Nazareth."  And 
she  too  comes  up  to  him  and  repeats  the  say- 
ing to  himself.  The  falsehood  of  the  first 
denial  he  has  now  to  repeat  and  justify.  He 
does  so  with  an  oath,  declaring,  "  I  do  not 
know  the  man." — Peter's  second  denial  of  his 
Master. 

A  full  hour  has  passed.  The  examination 
going  on  at  the  other  end  of  the  hall  has 
been  engrossing  the  attention  of  the  onlook- 
ers. Peter's  lost  composure  and  self-confi- 
dence have  in  a  measure  been  regained.  He 
is  out  in  the  hall  again,  standing  talking  with 
the  others ;  no  glare  of  light  upon  his  face, 
yet  little  thinking  all  the  while  that  by  his 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.  PETER.  41 

very  talking  he  is  sui^plying  another  mode  of 
recognition.  And  now  for  the  third  time, 
and  from  many  quarters,  he  is  challenged. 
One  said,  "  Of  a  truth  this  fellow  was  with 
liim."  A  second  :  "  Did  I  not  see  thee  with 
him  in  the  garden  ?"  A  third  :  "  Thy  speech 
bewrayeth  thee."  Beset  and  badgered  thus, 
Peter  begins  to  curse  and  to  swear,  as  he 
affirms,  "  I  know  not  the  man  of  whom  you 
speak." — Peter's  third  and  last  denial  of  his 
Lord. 

Truly  a  very  sad  and  humbling  exhibition 
this  of  human  frailty.  But  is  it  one  so  rare  ? 
Has  it  seldom  been  repeated  since  ?  Have 
we  never  ourselves  been  guilty  of  a  like 
offence  against  our  Saviour?  Is  there  no 
danger  that  we  may  again  be  guilty  of  it  ? 
That  we  may  be  prepared  to  give  a  true 
answer  to  such  questions,  let  us  consider 
wherein  the  essence  of  this  offence  of  the 
Apostle  consisted,  and  by  what  steps  he  was 
led  to  its  oommission.  His  sin  against  his 
Master  lay  in  his  being  ashamed  and  afraid 
to    confess    his    connexion    with    him,    when 


42  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    AND 

taunted  with  it  at  a  time  when  apparently 
confession   coiikl    do    Christ    no   good,    and 
might  damage  greatly  the  confessor.     It  was 
rather  shame  than  fear,  let  us  believe,  which 
led    to    the    first   denial.      It  was  in   moral 
courage,  not  physical,  that  Peter  failed.     By 
nature  he  was  brave  as  he  was  honest.     It 
was  no  idle  boast  of  his,  "  Lord,  I  will  follow 
thee   to  prison  and  to   death."      Had   there 
been  any  open  danger  to  be  faced,  can  we 
doubt  that  he  would  gallantly  have  faced  it  ? 
Had  his   Master   called  him  to  stand  by  his 
side  in  some  open  conflict  with  his  enemies, 
would  Peter  have  forsaken  him  ?     His  was 
one  of  but  two  swords  in  the  garden;  those 
two  against  all  the  swords  and  other  weapons 
of  that  multitude.     But  even  against  such 
odds,  Peter,  bold  as  a  lion,  drew  his  sword, 
and  had  the  use  of  it  been  allowed,  would 
have  fought  it  out,  till   he  had   died  by  his 
Master's   side.     But  it  is  altogether  a  new 
and  unexpected  state  of  things,  this  willing 
surrender  of  himself  by  Jesus  into  the  hands 
of  his  enemies  ;    this  refusal,  almost  rebuke, 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.  PETER.  13 

of  any  attempt  at  rescue  or  defence.  It  un- 
settles, it  overturns  all  Peter's  former  ideas 
of  his  Master's  power,  and  of  the  manner  in 
which  that  power  was  to  be  put  forth.  He 
can  make  nothing  of  it.  It  looks  as  if  all 
those  fond  hopes  about  the  coming  kingdom 
were  indeed  to  perish.  Confused,  bewil- 
dered, Peter  enters  the  High  Priest's  hall. 
Why  should  he  acknowledge  who  he  is,  or 
wherefore  he  is  there  ?  What  harm  can 
there  be  in  his  appearing  for  the  time  as  in- 
different to  Christ's  fate  as  any  of  these  offi- 
cers and  servants  among  whom  he  sits  ? 
That  free  and  easy  gait  of  theirs  he  assumes ; 
goes  in  with  all  they  say ;  perhaps  tries  to 
join  w^ith  them  in  their  coarse,  untimely 
mirth.  First  easy  yet  fatal  step,  this  taking 
on  a  character  not  his  own.  He  is  false  to 
himself  before  he  proves  false  to  his  Master. 
The  acted  lie  precedes  the  spoken  one ;  pre- 
pares for  it,  almost  necessitates  it.  It  was 
the  rash  act  of  sitting  down  with  those  men 
at  that  fireside,  that  assumption  of  the  mask, 
the  attempt  to  appear  to  be  what  he  was  not. 


44  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    AND 

wliicli  set  Peter  upon  the  slippery  edge  of 
that  slope,  down  which  to  such  a  depth  he 
afterwards  descended.  Why  is  it  we  think 
so  ?  Because  we  have  asked  ourselves  the 
question,  Where  all  this  while  was  his  com- 
panion John,  and  how  was  it  faring  with 
him  ?  He  too  was  within  the  hall,  yet  there 
is  no  challenging  or  badgering  of  him.  The 
domestics  of  the  dwelling  indeed  know  him, 
and  he  may  be  safe  from  any  interference  on 
their  part ;  but  there  are  many  here  besides 
who  know  as  little  about  him  as  they  do 
about  Peter.  Yet  never  once  is  John  ques- 
tioned or  disturbed.  And  why,  but  because 
he  had  joined  none  of  their  companies,  had 
attempted  no  disguise  ;  his  speech  was  not 
heard  bewraying  him.  Had  you  looked  for 
him  there,  you  would  have  found  him  in 
some  quiet  shaded  nook  of  that  quadrangle, 
as  near  his  Master  as  he  could  get,  yet  in- 
viting no  scrutiny,  exposing  himself  to  no 
detection. 

That  first  false  act  committed,  how  natu- 
ral with  Peter  was  all  that  followed  !     His 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  45 

position,  once  taken,  had  to  be  supported,  had 
to  be  made  stronger  and  stronger  to  meet  the 
renewed  and  more  impetuous  assaults.  So  is 
it  with  all  courses  of  iniquity.  The  fatal  step 
is  the  first  one,  taken  often  thoughtlessly, 
almost  unconsciously.  But  our  feet  get  hope- 
lessly entangled  ;  the  weight  that  drags  us 
along  the  incline  gets  at  every  step  the 
heavier,  till  onward,  downward  we  go  into 
depths  that  our  eyes  at  the  first  would  have 
shuddered  to  contemplate,  our  souls  revolting 
at  the  thought  that  we  should  ever  have  been 
found  there.  In  this  matter,  then,  of  denying 
our  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ,  let  us  not 
be  high-minded,  but  fear;  and,  taking  our 
special  warning  from  that  first  false  step  of 
Peter,  should  we  ever  happen  to  be  thrown 
into  the  society  of  those  who  bear  no  liking 
to  the  name  or  the  cause  of  the  Redeemer, 
let  us  beware  lest,  hiding  in  inglorious  shame 
our  faces  from  him,  we  be  tempted  to  say  or 
to  do  what  for  us,  with  our  knowledge,  would 
bo  a  far  worse  thing  to  say  or  do,  than  what 


46  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTAIiCE,    AND 

was  said  and  done  by  Peter,  in  his  ignorance, 
within  the  High  Priest's  hall. 

The  oaths  with  which  he  sealed  his  third 
denial  were  yet  fresh  on  Peter's  lips,^"  when  a 
second  4ime  the  cock  crew  without.  And 
that  shrill  sound  was  yet  ringing  in  his  ears 
when  "  the  Lord  turned  and  looked  upon 
Peter."  How  singularly  well-timed  that  look  ! 
The  Lord  is  waiting  till  the  fit  moment  come, 
and  instantly  seizes  it.  It  might  be  wrong 
in  us  to  say  that  but  for  the  look,  the  second 
cock-crowing  would  have  been  as  little  heeded 
as  the  first.  It  might  be  wrong  in  us  to  say 
that,  but  for  the  awakening  sound,  the  .  look 
would  of  itself  have  failed  in  its  effect.  But 
we  can  not  be  wrong  in  saying  that  the  look 
and  the  sound  each  helped  the  other,  and  that 
it  was  the  striking  and  designed  coincidence 
of  the  two — their  conjunction  at  the  very  time 
when  Peter  was  confirming  that  third  denial 
by  those  oaths — that  formed  the  external 
agency  which  our  Lord  was  pleased  to  con- 

*  "  Immediately,  wliile  lie  yet  spake,  the  cock  crew."    Luke^ 
xxii.  60.     See  also  Matt.,  xxvi.  74. 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETRR.  47 

ptruct  and  employ  for  stirring  the  sluggish 
memory  and  quickening  the  dead  conscience 
of  the  apostle.  And  sluggish  memories,  dead 
consciences,  are  they  not  often  thus  awakened 
by  striking  outward  providences  co-operating 
with  the  Word  and  with  the  Spirit  ?  Have 
none  of  us  been  startled  thus,  as  Peter  was, 
amid  our  denials  or  betrayals  of  our  Master  ? 
Let  us  bless  the  instrument,  whatever  it  may 
be,  by  which  so  valuable  a  service  is  ren- 
dered, and  see  in  its  employment  only  an- 
other proof  of  the  thoughtful,  loving  care  of 
him  who  would  not  let  us  be  guilty  of  such 
offences  without  some  means  being  taken  to 
alarm  and  to  recover. 

Let  us  believe,  however,  that  of  the  two — 
the  sound  and  the  look — the  chief  power  and 
virtue  lay  in  the  latter.  "  The  Lord  turned." 
He  turned  from  facing  those  scowling  judges  ; 
from  listening  to  all  the  false  testimony 
brought  forward  against  him ;  from  bearing 
all  the  insults  that  masters  and  servants  were 
heaping  upon  him  ;  from  all  the  excitements 
of  a  trial  which  he  knew  was  to  end  in  his 


48  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    AND 

condemnation  unto  death.  Forgetful  of  self, 
still  thoughtful  of  his  own,  "  He  turned  and 
looked  upon  Peter."  Was  that  a  look  of  an- 
ger ;  of  unmingled,  unmitigated  rehuke  ? 
Such  a  look  might  have  sent  Peter  away  to 
hang  himself  as  Judas  did  ;  hut  never  to  shed 
such  tears  of  penitence  as  he  went  out  to 
weep.  The  naked  eye  of  the  very  Godhead 
might  be  on  us  ;  but  if  from  that  eye  there 
looked  out  nothing  but  stern,  rebuking,  re- 
lentless wrath,  the  look  of  such  an  eye  might 
scorch  and  wither,  but  never  melt  and  subdue 
hearts  like  ours.  Doubtless  there  was  re- 
proach in  the  look  which  Jesus  bent  upon 
Peter  ;  gentle  reproach,  all  the  more  powerful 
because  of  its  gentleness.  But  that  reproach, 
quickly  as  it  was  perceived,  and  keenly  as  it 
was  felt,  formed  but  the  outward  border  or 
fringe  of  an  expression,  the  body  of  which 
was  tender,  forgiving,  sympathizing  love. 
Volumes  of  pity  and  compassion  Iny  enfolded 
in  that  look.  It  told  the  apostle  how  well 
He,  of  whom  he  had  just  been  saying  that  he 
knew  him  not,  knew  him  ;  how  thoroughly  he 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  49 

knew  him  when  he  forewarned  him  of  his  fall. 
Bnt  it  told  Peter  at  the  same  time,  that  it 
was  no  thought  or  feeling  of  the  injury  or 
wrong  that  had  been  done  personally  to  him- 
self, which  made  Jesus  fix  now  so  earnest  a 
gaze  upon  him.  Not  so  much  of  himself  as 
of  Peter  was  he  thinking  :  not  for  himself, 
but  for  Peter  was  he  caring.  It  was  the 
thought  of  that  wrong  which  Peter  had  been 
doing  to  himself,  which  winged  the  look,  and 
sent  it  on  its  hallowed  errand  into  Peter's 
heart.  He  felt,  as  it  fell  upon  him,  that  it 
was  the  look  of  one,  not  angrily  complaining 
of  injury,  not  indignantly  demanding  redress, 
but  only  longing  for  it  that  Peter  might  feel 
how  unkindly,  ungratefully,  ungenerously,  he 
had  acted  towards  such  a  Master ;  of  one  who 
wished  him  aboA^e  all  things  to  be  assured 
that  if  he  but  saw  and  felt  his  error,  there 
was  readiness  and  room  enough  in  his  heart 
to  receive  him  back  at  once  and  fully  into 
favor, — to  forgive  all,  forget  all,  be  all  to  him 
he  had  ever  been.  Another  kind  of  look  the 
apostle  might  have  encountered  unflinchingly. 


f50  THE    DENIALS,    REI ENTANCE,    AND 

but  not  a  look  like  that.  Instantly  there 
flashed  upon  his  memory  those  words  of 
prophetic  warning,  spoken  a  few  hours  before 
in  the  guest-chamber.  Thrice  had  Jesus  fore- 
warned him,  that  before  the  cock  crew  twice, 
he  should  thrice  deny  him.  Had  he  never 
thought  of  these  words  till  now  ?  In  the  dis- 
traction of  the  moment  he  might  have  allowed 
the  first  cock-crowing  to  pass  by  unheeded, 
but  how  could  that  whole  hour*  which  fol- 
lowed his  two  earhest  denials  have  gone  past, 
without  the  striking  warning  occurring  once 
to  his  memory  ?  Very  strange  it  seems  to 
us ;  but  very  strange  are  the  moods  and  pas- 
sions of  the  mind — what  is  remembered  by  it, 
and  what  forgotten,  when  some  new  strong 
tide  of  thought  and  feeling  rushes  into,  fills, 
and  agitates  the  soul.  In  the  strange,  unex- 
pected, perilous  position  in  which  he  had  so 
suddenly  been  placed,  Peter  had  forgotten 
all ; — the  meeting  of  the  upper  chamber,  the 
triple  warning,  the  "Verily  verily,  I  say 
unto  you,"  which  had  then  sounded  in  hia 

*  Luke  xxii.  59. 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  61 

ears.  But  now,  as  if  the  awakened  memory, 
by  the  very  fuhiess  and  vividness  of  its  recall, 
would  repair  the  past  forgetfulness,  he  sees 
all,  hears  all  again.  Those  words  of  warning 
are  anew  ringing  in  his  ears,  and  as  he  thinks 
how  fearfully  exact  the  fulfilment  of  those 
forgotten  predictions  of  his  Master  has  been, 
a  sense  of  guilt  and  shame  oppresses  him. 
He  can  bear  that  look  no  longer;  he  turns 
and  hurries  out  of  the  hall,  seeking  a  place  to 
shed  his  bitter  tears — tears  not  like  those  of 
Judas,  of  dismal  and  hopeless  remorse,  but  of 
genuine  and  unaflected  repentance.  He  goes 
out  alone,  but  whither  V  It  was  still  dark. 
The  day  had  not  yet  dawned.  He  Avould  not 
surely  at  such  an  hour,  and  in  such  a  state  of 
feeling,  go  back  at  once  into  the  city,  to  seek 
out  and  join  the  others  who  had  fled.  Such 
deep  and  bitter  grief  as  his  seeks  solitude ; 
and  where  could  he  find  a  solitude  so  suitable 
as  that  which  his  Lord  and  Master  had  so 
loved  ?  We  picture  him  to  our  fancy  as  visit- 
ing alone  the  garden  of  Gethsemane,  not  now 
to  sleep  while  his  Lord  is  suffering ;  but  to 


52  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    AND 

seek  out  the  spot  wliicli  Jesiis  had  hallowed 
by  his  agony,  to  mingle  his  tears  with  the 
blood-drops  which  still  bedew  the  sod. 

When  and  how  he  spent  the  two  dismal 
days  which  followed  we  do  not  know.  After 
that  look  from  Him  in  the  judgment-hall  he 
never  saw  his  Lord  alive  again.  But  as  on 
the  third  morning  we  find  John  and  him  to- 
gether, we  may  believe  that  it  was  from  the 
the  lips  of  the  beloved  disciple — the  only  one 
of  all  the  twelve  who  was  present  at  the  trial 
before  Pilate,  and  who  stood  before  the 
cross — that  Peter  heard  the  narrative  of  that 
day's  sad  doings ;  how  they  bound  and 
scourged  and  mocked  and  spat  upon  the 
Lord  ;  how  they  nailed  him  to  the  cross,  and 
set  him  up  there  in  agony  to  die.  And  at 
each  part  of  the  sad  recital,  how  would  that 
heart,  made  so  tender  by  penitence,  be 
touched ;  how  would  it  grieve  Peter  to  re- 
member that  he  too  had  had  a  share  in  laying 
such  heavy  burdens  on  the  last  hours  of  his 
Lord's  suffering  life  !  That  Master  whom  he 
had  so  dishonorably  and  ungratefully  denied, 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  03 

was  now  sleeping  in  the  grave.  0  but  for 
one  short  hour  with  him — a  single  inter- 
view— that  he  might  tell  him  how  bitterly  he 
repented  what  he  had  done,  and  get  from  his 
Master's  living,  loving  lips  the  assurance  that 
he  had  been  forgiven  !  But  that  never  was 
to  be.  He  should  never  see  him  more. 
Never !  grief-blinded  man  ?  Thine  eye  it 
sees  not,  thine  ear  it  hears  not,  neither  can 
that  sorrow-burdened  heart  of  thine  conceive 
what  even  now  Jesus  is  preparing  for  thee. 
The  third  morning  dawns.  The  Saviour  rises 
triumphant  from  the  grave  ;  in  rising,  sets 
the  angels  there  as  sentries  before  the  empty 
tomb  ;  gives  to  them  the  order  that,  to  the 
first  visitants  of  the  sepulchre,  this  message 
shall  be  given  :  "  Go,  tell  the  disciples  and 
Peter,  that  he  is  risen  from  the  dead."  This 
message  from  the  angel,  Peter  had  not  heard* 
when  he  and  John  ran  out  together  to  the 
sepulchre,  and  found  it  empty.  But  he  heard 
it  not  long  thereafter.     Who  may  tell  what 

*  Mary  Magdalene,  on  whose  report  tbej  acted,  had  seen  no 
fiugel  ou  her  first  visit  to  the  sepulchre. 


54  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    AND 

strange  thoughts  that  singling  out  of  him — ■ 
that  special  mention  of  his  name  by  those 
angelic  watchers  of  the  sepulchre — excited 
in  Peter's  heart  ?  How  came  those  angels  to 
know  or  think  of  him  at  such  a  time  as  this  ? 
It  could  not  be  on  motion  of  their  own  that 
they  had  acted.  They  must  have  got  that 
message  from  the  Lord  himself,  been  told  by 
him  particularly  to  name  Peter  to  the  women. 
But  was  it  not  a  thing  most  wonderful,  that, 
in  the  very  act  of  bursting  the  barriers  of  the 
grave,  there  should  be  such  a  remembrance 
of  him  on  the  part  of  that  INIaster  whom  he 
had  so  lately  denied  •?  Was  it  not  an  omen 
for  good  ?  Peter  had  his  rising  hopes  con- 
firmed, his  doubts  and  fears  all  quenched, 
when,  some  time  in  the  course  of  that  fore- 
noon, waiting  till  John  and  he  had  parted — 
waiting  till  he  could  meet  him  alone,  and 
speak  to  him  with  all  the  greater  freedom 
and  fulness — Jesus  showed  himself  to  Peter. 
Before  he  met  the  others  to  speak  peace, 
he  hastened  to  meet  Peter  to  speak  pardon. 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.  PETER.  55 

One  of  the  first  offices  of  the  risen  Saviour 
was  to  wipe  away  the  tears  of  the  penitent. 

"  Go  your  way,"  said  the  angel  to  the 
women  at  the  sepulclire,  "  tell  his  disciples 
and  Peter,  that  he  goeth  before  you  into 
Galilee ;  there  shall  ye  see  him,  as  he  said 
unto  you."  The  Paschal  festival,  and  Christ's 
own  presence,  kept  the  apostles  for  eight 
days  and  more  in  the  holy  city.  But  as, 
after  those  two  interviews  in  the  evenings  of 
the  first  two  Lord's  days  of  the  Christian 
Church,  Jesus  did  not  appear  to  them  again, 
presuming  that  he  had  gone  before  them  to 
Galilee,  the  eleven  also  went  thither.  The 
return  to  their  old  homes  and  haunts,  the 
sight  of  their  nets  and  fishing-boats,  the  ab- 
sence of  any  specific  instructions  as  to  what 
they  were  to  be,  or  what  to  do  in  the  future, 
suggest  to  some  of  them  the  thought  of  tak- 
ing up  again  their  earlier  occupation.  Seven 
of  them  are  walking  together  one  evening  by 
the  lake  side.  It  is  the  best  hour  of  all  the 
day  for  fishing  in  it.  The  lake  looks  tempt- 
ing;  the  boats  and  the  nets  are  near.     Peter 


56     THE  DENIALS,  REPENTANCE,  AND 

— the  very  one  from  whom  we  should  have 
expected  a  first  proposal  of  this  kind  to  come 
— says  to  them,  "  I  go  a  fishing."  They  all 
go  with  him.  They  toil  all  the  niglit,  but 
catch  nothing.  As  morning  breaks  they  see 
a  man  standing  on  the  shore,  seen  but  dimly 
through  the  haze,  but  near  enough  to  let  his 
voice  be  heard  across  the  water.  "  Children," 
he  says,  "have  ye  any  meat?"  They  tell 
him  they  have  none.  "  Cast  the  net,"  he 
replies,  "  on  the  right  side  of  the  ship,  and 
ye  shall  find."  And  now  they  are  not  able 
to  draw  it  for  the  multitude  of  fishes.  This 
could  scarcely  fail  to  recall  to  the  memory  of 
some  at  least  within  the  boat,  that  other 
miraculous  draught  of  fishes,  by  which,  now 
nearly  three  years  before,  three  out  of  the 
twelve  apostles  were  taught  to  forsake  all 
and  follow  Jesus,  that  he  might  make  them 
fishers  of  men.  This  repetition  of  the 
miracle  was  nothing  else  than  a  symbolic  re- 
newal of  that  first  commission,  intended  to 
teach  the  twelve  that  their  apostolic  calling 
still  held  good.     There  was  one,  however,  of 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  57 

the  seven  who  gathered  round  Jesus  at  the 
morning  meal  which  he  sjiread  for  them  on 
the  shore,  when  their  fisher's  toil  was  over, 
whose  position  towards  that  commission  and 
upostleship  had  become  peculiar.  He  had 
been  in  the  habit  of  taking  a  very  prominent 
jDlace  among  the  twelve,  had  often  acted 
as  their  representative  and  spokesman.  But 
on  the  night  of  the  betraj^al,  he  had  played 
a  singularly  shameful  and  inconsistent  part. 
They  had  all,  indeed,  forsaken  their  Master ; 
but  who  would  have  thought  that  the  very 
one  of  them  who  that  night  had  been  so 
vehement  in  bis  assertions  that  though  all 
men,  all  his  fellow-disciples,  should  forsake 
his  Master,  he  never  would,  should  yet  so 
often,  and  with  such  superfluous  oaths,  have 
denied  that  he  ever  knew,  or  had  anything 
to  do  with  Jesus  ?  True  it  was  that  Jesus 
had  forgiven  Peter.  His  fellow-disciples, 
also,  had  forgiven  that  overboastful  magni- 
fj'ing  of  himself  above  the  others.  There 
was  something  so  frank  about  him,  and  so 
genuine  ;  such  outgoings  of  an  honest,  manly, 


58  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    AND 

kindly,  generous  nature,  that  they  could  not 
bear  agamst  him  any  grudge.  They  were  all 
now  on  their  old  terms  with  one  another. 
But  how  will  it  stand  with  Peter  if  that  apos- 
tolic work  has  to  be  taken  up  again  ?  How 
will  he  feel  as  to  resuming  his  old  position 
among  the  twelve  ?  Will  he  not,  in  the 
depth  of  that  humility  and  self-distrust 
taught  him  by  his  great  fall,  shrink  now  from 
placing  himself  even  on  the  same  level  with 
the  others  ?  And  how  will  his  Lord  and 
Master  feel  and  act  as  to  his  re-instatement 
in  that  office  from  which  by  his  transgression 
he  might  be  regarded  as  having  fallen  ?  To 
all  these  questions  there  were  answers  given, 
when  Jesus,  once  more  singling  Peter  out, 
said  to  him,  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas," — the 
very  giving  him  his  old  and  double  name 
sounding  as  a  note  of  preparation,  telling  that 
some  important  question  was  about  to  be  ad- 
dressed to  him,  — "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas, 
lovest  thou  me  more  than  these,"  thy  breth 
ren,  my  other  disciples,  do? — a  gentle  ye 
distinct  enough  reminder  of  that  former  say 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  59 

ing  :  "  Though  all  men  should  be  offended,  1 
never  will ;"  a  delicate  yet  searching  probe, 
pressed  kindly  but  firmly  home  into  the 
depths  of  Peter's  heart ;  a  skilful  method  of 
testing  and  exhibiting  the  trueness  and  deep- 
ness of  Peter's  repentance,  without  subject- 
ing him  to  the  painful  humiliation  of  having 
the  terrible  denials  of  his  Master  brought  up 
and  dwelt  upon,  either  by  Jesus  in  the  way 
of  charge,  or  by  himself  in  the  way  of  con- 
fession. The  best  way  of  trying  any  man 
whether  he  has  really  repented  of  any  sinful 
deed  is  to  place  him  again  in  the  like  cir- 
cumstances, and  see  if  he  will  act  in  the  like 
manner.  This  is  the  way  in  which  the  Lord 
now  tries  Peter.  Will  he  again  compare 
himself  with  the  others  ;  will  he  set  himself 
above  them ;  will  he  say  as  much  now  about 
his  love  being  greater  than  theirs,  as  he  did 
then  about  his  courage  ;  will  he  repeat  that 
boasting  which  which  was  the  precursor  of 
his  fall  ?  How  touchingly  does  his  answer 
show  that  he  perfectly  understood  the  in- 
volved reference  to  the  past ;    that  he  had 


60    THE  DENIALS,  REPENTANCE,  AND 

thoroughly  learned  its  humbling  lessons  ? 
No  longer  any  comparing  himself  with  or  set- 
ting himself  above  others, — the  old  Peter- 
like frankness  and  fervor  in  the  ^'  Yea,  Lord, 
I  love  thee,"  but  a  new  humility  in  it,  for  he 
will  not  say  how  much  he  loves,  still  less  will 
venture  to  say  that  he  loves  more  than 
others  ;  and  a  still  deeper  humility  in  it,  for 
he  will  not  offer  his  own  testimony  as  to 
the  love  he  feels,  he  will  trust  no  more  that 
deceitful  heart  of  his,  nor  ask  his  Lord  to 
trust  it,  but  throwing  himself  upon  another 
knowledge  of  that  heart  which  had  proved 
to  be  better  than  its  own,  he  says,  "  Yea, 
Lord,  thou  hioivest  that  I  love  thee."  Our 
Lord's  reply  is  a  most  emphatic  affirmative 
response  to  this  appeal.  It  is  as  if  he  had 
said  at  large,  "  Yes,  Simon  Barjona,  I  do 
know  that  thou  lovest  me.  I  know,  too,  that 
thou  wouldst  make  no  boast  of  thy  love,  nor 
in  that  or  anything  else  set  thyself  any  lon- 
ger above  thy  fellows  ;  and  now,  that  these 
thy  brethren  might  know  and  see  it  too,  how 
hearty  thy  penitence  has  been,  how  thorough- 


RESTORATION    OF    ST.    PETER.  61 

ly  it  has  done  its  humbling  work,  and  how 
readily  I  own  and  acknowledge  thee  as  being 
all  to  me  thou  ever  wert ;  therefore  now,  in 
presence  of  these  brethren,  I  renew  to  thee 
the  apostolic  commission — publicly  re-instate 
thee  in  the  apostolic  office  — '  Feed  my 
sheep.'  I  need  not  ask  thee  again  whether 
thou  lovest  me  more  than  others.  I  will 
prove  thee  no  more  by  that  allusion  to  the 
past ;  but  I  have  once,  twice,  thrice  to  put 
that  other  general  question  to  thee,  that  as 
three  times  I  warned  thee,  and  three  times 
thou  didst  deny  me,  even  so  I  may  three 
times  re-instate,  restore."  Can  we  wonder 
that  Peter  was  grieved,  when  for  the  third 
time  that  question,  Lovest  thou  me?  was  put 
to  him.  It  was  not  the  grief  of  doubt,  as  if 
he  suspected  that  Jesus  only  half-believed 
his  word  ;  but  the  grief  of  that  contrition 
which  grows  into  a  deeper  sadness  at  the  so 
distinct  allusion  to  his  three  denials  in  that 
triple  repetition  of  the  question.  And  yet 
even  in  that  sadness  there  is  a  comfort ; 
the  comfort  of  the  feeling  that  his  affectionate 


62  THE    DENIALS,    REPENTANCE,    ETC. 

Master  is  giving  liim  the  opportunity  of 
wiping  away  by  threefold  confession  his  three- 
fold denial.  And  so,  with  a  fuller  heart,  and 
in  stronger  words  than  ever,  will  he  make 
avowal  of  his  love  :  "  Lord,  thou  knowest  all 
things  J  thou  knowest  that  I  love  thee.'*' 


III. 

^ke  Win\  htUvi  Hit  MnMMnx* 

The  Jews  regarded  their  day  as  beginning 
at  one  sunset  and  ending  witli  the  next.  Tliis 
interval  was  not  divided  into  twenty-four 
parts  or  hours  of  equal  and  invariable  length. 
They  took  each  day  by  itself,  from  sunrise  to 
sunset,  and  each  night  by  itself,  from  sunset 
to  sunrise,  and  divided  each  into  twelve  equal 
parts  or  hours  ;  so  that  a  Jewish  hour,  instead 
of  being,  as  it  is  with  us,  a  fixed  measure  of 
time,  A^aried  in  its  length  as  each  successive 
day  and  night  varied  in  theirs  at  different 
seasons  of  the  year.  Neither  did  the  Jews 
begin  as  we  do,  reckoning  the  twelve  hours, 
into  which  the  day  and  night  were  respect- 

*  Jolin  xviii.  19-24;    Luke  xxii.  6G-71 ;    Matt,  sxvi   59-68; 
Mark  xiv.  53-65. 


64  THE   TRIAL    BEFORE 

ively  divided,  from  midday  and  midnight,  but 
from  sunset  and  sunrise ;  their  sixth  hour  of 
the  night  corresponding  thus  with  our  twelve 
o'clock,  our  midnight ;  their  sixth  hour  of  the 
day  with  our  twelve  o'clock,  our  midday. 
There  were  but  two  periods  of  the  year,  those 
of  the  autumnal  and  vernal  equinox,  when, 
day  and  night  being  exactly  equal,  the  length 
of  the  hours  in  both  was  precisely  the  same 
with  our  own.  It  was  at  one  of  these  periods, 
that  of  the  vernal  equinox,  that  the  Jewish 
Passover  was  celebrated,  and  it  was  on  the 
day  which  preceded  its  celebration  that  our 
Lord  was  crucified.  It  was  close  upon  the 
hour  of  sunrise  on  that  day  that  Jesus  was 
carried  to  the  Prsetorium,  to  be  examined  by 
the  Roman  Governor,  Assuming  that  he  en- 
tered Gethsemane  about  midnight,  and  re- 
mained there  about  an  hour,  the  interval  be- 
tween the  Jewish  seventh  and  twelfth  hour 
of  the  night,  or  between  our  one  and  six 
o'clock  of  the  morning,  was  spent  in  the  trial 
before  Annas  and  Caiphas,  both  reckoned  as 
High  Priests,  the  one  being  such  de  Jure,  the 


THE   SANHEDRIM.  65 

other  de  facto.  They  seem  to  have  been  liv- 
ing at  this  time  in  the  same  palace  intc  the 
hall  of  which  Jesus  was  carried  immediately 
after  his  arrest.  It  was  in  this  hall,  and  be- 
fore Annas,  that  Jesus  was  subjected  to  that 
preliminary  informal  examination  recorded  in 
the  eighteenth^*  chapter  of  the  Gospel  of  St. 
John.  He  was  to  be  formally  tried,  with 
show  at  least  of  law,  before  the  Sanhedrim, 
the  highest  of  the  Jewish  courts,  but  this 
could  not  be  done  at  once.  Some  time  was 
needed  to  call  the  members  of  that  court  to- 
gether, and  to  consult  as  to  the  conduct  of 
the  trial.  Annas  was  there  from  the  first, 
awaiting  the  return  of  the  band  sent  out  to 
arrest  the  Saviour.  His  son-in-law  Caiaphas 
was  in  all  likelihood  by  his  side,  eager  both 
and  ready  to  proceed.  But  they  could  not 
act  without  their  colleagues,  nor  pronounce 
any  sentence  which  they  might  call  upon  the 
Roman  Governor  at  once  to  ratify  and  exe- 
cute. Whilst  the  messengers,  however,  are 
despatched  to  summon  them,  and  the  meni- 

*  Jobi  xviii.  19-21, 


66  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

bers  of  the  Sanhedrim  are  gathering,  Annas 
may  prepai  e  the  way  by  sounding  Christ,  in  a 
far-off,  unofficial,  conversational  manner,  and 
may  perhaps  extract  from  his  replies  some 
good  material  upon  which  the  court  may 
afterward  proceed.  Calling  Jesus  before  him, 
he  puts  to  him  some  questions  about  his  disci- 
ples, and  his  doctrine ;  questions  fair  enough, 
and  proper  enough  as  to  their  outward  form, 
yet  captious  and  inquisitorial,  intended  to  en- 
tangle, and  pointing  not  obscurely  to  the  two 
main  charges  to  be  afterwards  brought  against 
him,  of  being  a  disturber  of  the  public  peace, 
and  a  teacher  of  blasphemous  doctrines. 

First,  then,  about  his  disciples:  Annas 
would  like  to  know,  what  this  gathering  of 
men  around  him  meant ;  this  forming  them 
into  a  distinct  society.  By  what  bond  or 
pledge  to  one  another  were  the  members  of 
this  new  society  united  ;  what  secret  instruc- 
tions had  they  got ;  what  hidden  objects  had 
they  in  view?  Though  Christ  might  not  re- 
veal the  secrets  of  this  combination,  yet,  let 
it  but  appear — as  by  his  very  refusal  to  give 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  G7 

the  required  information  it  miglit  be  made  to 
do — that  an  attempt  was  here  being  made  to 
organize  a  confederation  all  over  the  country, 
how  easy  would  it  be  to  awaken  the  jealousy 
of  the  Roman  authorities,  and  get  them  to 
believe  that  some  insurrectionary  plot  was 
being  hatched  which  it  was  most  desirable  at 
once  to  crush,  by  cutting  off  the  ringleader. 
Such  we  know  to  have  been  the  impression 
so  diligently  sought  to  be  conveyed  into  the 
mind  of  Pontius  Pilate.  And  Annas  began 
by  trying  whether  he  could  get  Jesus  to  say 
anything  that  should  give  a  color  of  truthful- 
ness to  such  an  imputation.  Penetrating  at 
once  this  design  of  the  questioner,  knowing 
thoroughly  what  his  real  meaning  and  pur- 
poses were,  our  Lord  utterly  and  indignantly 
denies  the  charge  that  was  attempted  thus  to 
be  fastened  on  him.  Neither  as  to  his  disci- 
ples, nor  as  to  his  doctrine, — neither  as  to 
the  instructions  given  to  his  followers,  nor  as 
to  the  bonds  of  their  union  and  fellowship 
with  one  another,  had  there  been  anything  of 
the  concealed  or  the  sinister;  not   one   doc- 


68  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

trine  for  the  people  without,  and  another  fo. 
the  initiated  within ;  no  meetings  under  cloud 
of  night  in  hidden  places  for  doubtful  or  dan- 
gerous objects.  "  I  spake,"  said  Jesus  to  this 
first  questioner,  "  openly  to  the  world  ;  I  ever 
taught  in  the  synagogue  and  in  the  temple, 
whither  the  Jews  always  resort;  and  in  se- 
cret"— that  is,  in  the  sense  in  which  I  know 
that  you  mean  and  use  that  term — "  have  I 
said  nothing." 

But  now  the  questioner  must  have  rolled 
back  upon  himself  a  question,  which  tells  him 
how  naked  and  bare  that  hypocritical  heart 
of  his  lay  to  the  inspection  of  the  questioned  : 
"  Why  askest  thou  me  ?"  Put  that  question, 
Annas,  to  thy  heart,  and  let  it  answer  thee, 
if  it  be  not  so  deceitful  as  to  hide  its  secrets 
from  thine  ow^n  eyes.  "  Why  askest  thou 
me  ?"  Art  thou  really  so  ignorant  as  thou 
pretendest  to  be  ;  thou,  who  hast  had  thy 
spies  about  me  for  well-nigh  three  years, 
tracking  my  footsteps,  watching  my  actions, 
reporting  my  words  ?  "  Why  askest  thou 
me  ?"    Dost  thou  really  care  to  know,  as  these 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  69 

questions  of  thine  would  seem  to  indicate  ? 
then  go,  "  ask  them  which  heard  me,  what  I 
have  said  unto  them  :  behold,  they  know  what 
I  said."     A  boldness  here,  a  touch  of  irony, 
a  stroke  of  rebuke,  which,  perhaps,  our  Lord 
might  not  have  used,  had  it  been  upon  his 
seat  and  in  his  office  as  President  of  the  San- 
hedrim that  the  High  Priest  was  speaking  to 
him  ;  had  it  not  been  for  the  mean  advantage 
w^hich  he  was  trying  to  take  of  him ;  had  it 
not  been  for  the  cloak  of  hypocrisy  which,  in 
trying  to  take  that   advantage,  he  had   as- 
sumed.    We  shall  see  presently,  at  least,  that 
our  Lord's  tone  and  manner  were  somewhat 
different  when  his  more  formal  trial  come  on. 
Christ's  sharp  sententious  answer  to  Annas 
protected  him — and  perhaps  that  was  one  of 
its  chief  purposes — from  the  repetition  and 
prolongation  of  the  annoyance.     It  seems  to 
have  silenced  the  High  Priest.     He  had  made 
but  little  by  that  way  of  interrogating  his 
prisoner,  and  he  wisely  gives  it  up.     What- 
ever resentment  he  cherished  at  being  checked 
and  spoken  to  in  such  a  manner,  he  restrained 


70  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

himself  from  any  expression  of  it,  biding  the 
hour  when  all  the  bitter  pent-up  hatred  at  the 
Nazarene  might  find  fi.tter  and  fuller  vent. 

But  there  was  one  of  his  officers  who  could 
not  so  restrain  himself,  who  could  not  bear  to 
see  his  master  thus  insulted,  and  who,  in  the 
heat  of  his  indignation,  struck  Christ  with  the 
palm  of  his  hand, — some  forward  official,  who 
thought  in  this  way  to  earn  his  master's  favor, 
but  who  only  earned  for  himself  the  unenvi- 
able notoriety  of  having  been  the  first  to  be- 
gin those  acts  of  inhuman  violence  with  which 
the  trial  and  condemnation  of  Jesus  were  so 
largely  and  disgracefully  interspersed.  Others 
afterwards  came  forward  to  mock  and  to  jos- 
tle and  to  blindfold,  and  to  smite  and  to  spit 
upon  our  Lord,  to  whom  he  answered  no- 
thing ;  but,  whether  it  was  that  there  was 
something  in  this  man  which  made  our  Sa- 
viour's words  to  him  peculiarly  needful  and 
peculiarly  appropriate,  or  whether  it  was  that 
at  this  early  stage  of  the  proceedings  Jesus 
was  using  the  same  freedom  with  the  servant 
which  he  had  used  with  the  master, — when 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  71 

he  inflicted  that  first  stroke,  and  said  to  Je- 
sus, "  Answerest  thou  the  High  Priest  so  ?" 
— Jesus  did  not  receive  the  stroke  in  silence. 
He  answered  the  question  by  another  :  "  If  I 
have  spoken  evil,  bear  Avitness  of  the  evil  ; 
but  if  well,  why  smitest  thou  me  ?"  Best 
comment  this  on  our  Lord's  own  precept :  "  If 
thy  brother  smite  thee  on  the  one  cheek,  turn 
to  him  the  other  also ;"  and  a  general  key  to 
all  like  Scripture  precepts,  teaching  us  that 
the  true  observance  of  them  lies  not  in  the 
fulfilment  of  them  as  to  the  letter,  but  in  the 
possession  and  exhibition  of  the  spirit  which 
they  prescribe.  How  much  easier  would  it 
be  when  smitten  upon  the  one  cheek,  to  turn 
the  other  for  a  second  stroke,  than  to  be  alto- 
gether like  our  Lord  in  temper  and  spirit  un- 
der the  infliction  of  the  stroke  !  More  diffi- 
cult, also,  than  any  silence,  to  imitate  that 
gentle  answer.  The  lip  might  keep  itself 
closed,  while  the  heart  was  burning  with 
anger.  But  it  was  out  of  the  depths  of  a  per- 
fect patience,  a  gentleness  which  nothing 
could  irritate,  a  condescension  which  stooped, 


72  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

even  while  smitten,  to  remonstrate,  that  the 
saying  came  :  "  If  I  have  spoken  evil,  bear 
witness  of  the  evil ;  but  if  well,  why  smitest 
thou  me  ?"  "  Think,"  says  Chrysostom,  "  on 
him  who  said  these  words,  on  him  to  whom 
they  were  said,  and  on  the  reason  why  they 
were  said,  and  these  words  will,  with  divine 
power,  cast  down  all  wrath  which  may  rise 
witliin  thy  soul." 

But  now  at  last  the  whole  Council  has 
assembled,  Caiaphas  has  taken  his  seat  as 
President,  and  they  may  go  more  formally 
to  work.  Their  object  is  to  convict  him  of 
some  crime  which  shall  warrant  their  pro- 
nouncing upon  him  the  severest  sentence  of 
the  law.  That  the  appearance  of  justice 
may  be  preserved,*  they  must  have  wit- 
nesses ;  these  witnessess  must  testify  to  some 
speech  or  act  of  Christ,  which  would  involve 


*  It  would  appear  that  in  holding  their  Council  during  the 
night,  and  in  condemning  Christ  solely  upon  his  own  confession, 
tho  Jews  violated  express  enactments  of  their  own  code.  See 
"Jesus  devant' Caiphe  et  Pilate — Refutation  du  chapitre  de  M. 
SaU-ador,  intitule  'Jugement  et  Condamnation  de  JesuJ,' "  par 
M.  Dupin. 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  73 

Inm  in  that  doom ;  and  as  to  any  specific 
charge,  two  of  these  witnesses  must  agree 
before  they  can  condemn.  They  could  have 
got  plenty  of  witnesses  to  testify  as  to 
Christ's  having  within  the  last  few  days 
openly  denounced  themselves,  the  members 
of  the  Sanhedrim,  as  fools  and  blind,  hypo- 
crites, a  very  generation  of  vipers ;  but  to 
have  convicted  Christ  upon  that  count  or 
charge  would  have  given  to  their  proceeding 
against  him  the  aspect  of  personal  revenge. 
They  could  have  got  plenty  of  witnesses  to 
testify  as  to  Christ's  having  often  broken  and 
spoken  slightingly  of  ordinances  and  tradi- 
tions of  the  Pharisees ;  but  there  were  Sad- 
ducees  among  their  own  members,  and  the 
Council  might  thus  have  been  divided.  They 
could  have  got  plenty  of  witnesses  to  testify 
as  to  Christ's  frequent  profjxnation  of  the 
Sabbath  ;  but  how  should  they  deal  with 
those  miracles,  in  or  connected  with  the  per- 
formance of  which  so  many  of  these  cases  of 
profanation  of  the  Sabbath  had  occurred? 
They  are  in  difficulty  about  their  witnesses. 


74  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

They  bring  forth  many ;  but  either  the 
charge  which  their  testimony  proposes  to 
establish  against  Christ,  comes  not  up  to  the 
required  degree  of  criminality,  or  the  clumsy 
testifiers,  brought  hastily  forward,  undrilled 
beforehand,  break  down  in  their  witness- 
giving.  Two,  however,  do  at  last  appear, 
who  seem  at  first  sight  to  agree ;  but  when 
minutely  questioned  as  to  the  words  which 
they  allege  that  more  than  two  years  before 
they  had  heard  him  utter  about  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  Temple,  they  report  them  differ- 
ently, so  that  "  neither  did  their  witness 
agree."  The  prosecution  is  in  danger  of 
breaking  down  through  want  of  sufficient 
proof. 

All  this  time,  the  accused  has  observed  a 
strange — to  his  judges  an  unaccountable  and 
provoking  silence.  He  hears  as  though  he 
heard  not — cared  not — were  indifferent  about 
the  result.  It  is  more  than  the  presiding 
judge  can  stand.  He  rises  from  his  seat, 
and,  fixing  his  eyes  on  Jesus,  says  to  him, 
"  Answerest    thou    nothino;  ? "      Hast    thou 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  75 

nothing  to  say  ? — no  question  to  put,  no  ex- 
planation to  offer,  as  to  what  these  witnesses 
testify  against  thee  ?  Jesus  returns  the 
look,  but  there  is  no  reply  :  he  stands  as 
silent,  as  unmoved  as  ever.  Baffled,  per- 
plexed, irritated,  the  High  Priest  will  try 
yet  another  way  with  him.  Using  the  accus- 
tomed Jewish  formula  for  administering  an 
oath — a  formula  recited  by  the  judge,  and 
accepted  without  repetition  by  the  respond- 
ent— "  I  adjure  thee,"  said  the  High  Priest, 
"by  the  living  God,  that  thou  tell  us  whether 
thou  be  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  God."  Ap- 
pealed to  thus  solemnly,  by  the  first  mngis- 
trate  of  his  nation,  sitting  in  presidency  over 
the  highest  of  its  courts,  our  Lord  keeps 
silence  no  longer.  But  it  is  in  words  of 
wonder  that  he  replies  to  the  High  Priest's 
adjuration.  He  sees  quite  through  the  pur- 
pose of  the  questioner.  He  knows  quite 
well  what  will  be  the  immediate  issue  of  his 
reply.  Yet  he  says,  "  I  am  ; "  I  am  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  Blessed;  "and  ye"— « 
3^e  who  are  sitting  there  now  as  my  judges, — ■ 


76  THE   TRIAL   BEFORE 

"ye  sliall  see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  on  the 
right  hand  of  power,  and  coming  in  the 
clouds  to  heaven."  It  is  our  Lord's  own 
free  and  full  confession,  his  public  and  solemn 
assertion  of  his  claim  to  the  Messiahship,  and 
Sonship  to  God.  The  time  for  all  conceal- 
ment or  reserve  is  past.  Jesus  will  now 
oj)enly,  not  only  take  to  himself  his  own 
name,  assume  his  office,  and  assert  his  Divine 
jDrerogatives,  but  in  doing  so,  he  will  let 
those  earthl}^  dignitaries,  who  have  dragged 
him  tlius  to  their  tribunal,  before  whose  judg- 
ment-seat he  stands,  know  that  the  hour  is 
coming  which  shall  witness  a  strange  reversal 
in  their  relative  positions, —  he  being  seen 
sitting  on  the  seat  of  power,  and  they,  with 
all  the  world  beside,  seen  standing  before  his 
bar,  as  on  the  clouds  of  heaven  he  comes  to 
judge  all  mankind. 

The  effect  of  this  confession,  this  sublime 
unfolding  of  his  true  character,  and  prophecy 
of  his  second  coming,  was  immediate,  and 
though  extraordinary,  not  unnatural.  The 
High  Priest,  as  soon  as  he  drank  in  the  real 


THE   SANHEDRIM.  77 

meaning  of  the  words  which  fell  on  his  aston- 
ished ear,  grasped  his  mantle,  and  ront  it  in 
real  or  feigned  horror,  exclaiming,  "  He  hath 
spoken  blasphemy."  Then  rose  up  also  the 
other  judges  who  were  sitting  round  him,  ex- 
cited to  the  highest  pitch,  each  one  more 
eager  than  the  other,  to  put  this  question  to 
the  accused,  "  Art  thou  then  the  Son  of 
God  ?"  to  all  of  whom  there  is  the  same 
answer  as  to  Caiaphas,  "  I  am."  "  What 
further  need,  then,"  says  the  President  of  the 
Court  to  his  brother  judges,  "  have  we  of  wit- 
nesses ?  Now  ye  have  heard  his  blasphemy. 
What  think  ye?"  "What  need  we,"  they 
say  to  him,  taking  up  his  own  words,  "  any 
further  witnesses  ?  for  we  ourselves  have 
heard  it  out  of  his  own  mouth."  And  they 
"  answered  and  said,  He  is  guilty  of  death."* 
The  unanimous  judgment  of  the  Court  is 
delivered,^  and  the  sentence  of  death  pro 
nounced. 

Is   there  not  one  among  all  those  judges 
within  whose  heart  there  rise   some   strange 

*  See  Deut.  xiii.  5 ;  xviii-  20.  f  Mark  xiv.  64. 


78  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

misgivings  as  he  dooms  this  man  to  die ;  not 
one  whom  the  calmness,  the  serenity,  tlie 
dignified  bearing  of  the  Lord,  as  he  made  the 
great  revelation  of  himself  before  them,  have 
impressed  with  wonder  and  with  avv^e  ?  Per- 
Jiaps  there  is  ;  but  the  tumult  of  that  vehe- 
ment condemnation  carries  him  away  ;  or  if 
any  inward  voice  be  pleading  for  the  accused, 
he  quenches  it  by  saying  that,  if  Jesus  really 
submit  to  such  a  sentence  being  executed 
upon  him,  he  cannot  be  the  Messiah,  he  must 
be  a  deceiver ;  and  so  he  lets  the  matter  take 
its  course. 

The  pronouncing  of  the  sentence  from  the 
bench  was  the  signal  for  a  horrible  outburst 
of  coarsest  violence  in  the  hall  below.  As  if 
all  license  were  theirs  to  do  with  him  what 
they  liked — as  if  they  knew  they  could  not 
go  too  far ;  could  do  nothing  that  their  mas- 
ters would  not  approve,  perhaps  enjoy — the 
men  who  held  Jesus*  (for  it  would  seem  they 
could  not  trust  him,  bound  though  he  was,  to 
Btand  there  free  before  them),  began  to  mock 

*  Luke  xxii.  63. 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  79 

him,  and  to  buffet  him,  and  to  spit  upon  him, 
and  to  cover  his  eyes  with  their  hands,  say- 
ing, as  they  struck  at  him,  "  Prophesy  to  us 
who  it  is  that  smiteth  thee."  "  And  many 
other  things  blasphemously  spake  they 
against  him."  How  long  all  this  went  on  we 
know  not.  They  had  to  wait  till  the  proper 
hour  for  carrying  Jesus  before  the  Roman 
Governor  arrived,  and  it  was  thus  that  the 
interval  was  filled  up ;  the  meek  and  the 
patient  One,  who  was  the  object  of  all  this 
scorn  and  cruelty,  neither  answering,  nor 
murmuring,  nor  resisting,  nor  reproaching. 
There  was  but  one  man  in  that  hall  to  look 
with  loving,  pitying  eyes  on  him  who  was 
being  treated  thus ;  and,  in  the  words  which 
that  spectator  penned  long  years  thereafter 
in  the  distant  lonely  island,  we  may  see  some 
trace  of  the  impression  which  the  sight  of 
the  great  sufferer  made — "  I,  John,  who  also 
am  your  brother  and  companion  in  tribula- 
tion, and  in  the  kingdom  and  patience  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

Th'>  malignant  antipathy  to  Christ  cherished 


80  '      THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

by  the  hierarchical  party  at  Jerusalem  had 
early  ripened  into  an  intention  to  cut  him  off 
by  death.  It  was  at  the  beginning  of  the 
second  year  of  his  ministry  that  he  healed  the 
impotent  man  at  the  pool  of  Bethesda.  "  The 
man  departed,  and  told  the  Jews  that  it  was 
Jesus  which  had  made  him  whole.  And 
therefore  did  the  Jews  persecute  Jesus,  and 
sought  to  slay  him,  because  he  had  done  these 
things  on  the  Sabbath-day.  But  Jesus  an- 
swered them,  My  •  Father  worketh  hitherto, 
and  I  work.  Therefore  the  Jews  sought  the 
more  to  kill  him,  because  he  not  only  had 
broken  the  Sabbath,  but  said  also  that  God  was 
his  Father,  making  himself  equ;d  with  God."* 
So  far  from  repudiating  this  interpretation  of 
his  words,  Jesus  accepted  and  confirmed  it ; 
enlarging  the  scope,  without  altering  the  na- 

*  John  V.  15-18.  When,  on  a  succeeding  Sabbath  Christ 
healed  the  man  who  had  a  witliered  liand,  the  Pharisees  "were 
filled  with  madness,  and  straightway  took  counsel  with  the  Hero- 
dians  against  him  how  they  might  destroy  him." — Luke  vi.  11 ; 
Mark  iii.  6.  Christ's  movements  were,  from  the  beginning  and 
throughout,  more  regulated  by  the  pressure  of  the  persecution  to 
which  ho  was  exposed,  than  a  cursory  reading  of  the  Gospel  nar- 
mtive  might  lead  us  to  imagine. — See  John  ii.  24;  iv.  1-3  ;  ilark 
L  45  ;  Luke  v  17  •  xi.  53-56. 


THE    SANHEDRIM,  81 

lure  of  what  he  had  said  about  the  Father, 
claiming  not  only  unity  in  action,  but  unity 
in  honor  with  him.*  So  vengeful  in  their 
hatred  did  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem  become,  that 
Jesus  had  to  seek  safety  by  retiring  from 
Judea.  In  the  course  of  the  two  years  which 
followed,  Jesus  paid  only  two  visits  to  the 
metropolis,  and  both  were  marked  by  out- 
breaks of  the  same  implacable  animosity.  His 
appearance  in  Jerusalem  at  the  Feast  of  Tab- 
ernacles excited  such  an  instant  and  intense 
spirit  of  vindictiveness,  that  one  of  our  Lord's 
first  sayings  to  the  Jews  in  the  Temple  was, 
*'  Why  go  ye  about  to  kill  me  ?"  So  well 
known  was  the  purpose  of  the  rulers  that  it 
was  currently  said,  "  Is  not  this  he  whom 
they  seek  to  kill  ?  But,  lo,  he  speaketh 
boldly,  and  they  say  nothing  unto  him.  Do 
the  rulers  know  indeed  that  this  is  the  very 
Christ  ?"f  Hearing  that  such  things  were 
said,  the  rulers  sent  their  officers  to  seize  him, 
but  failed  in  the  attempt  to  get  him  into  their 
hands.     They   then    confronted   him   in    the 

*  JoliD  V.  33.  f  Jobu  vii.  25,  26. 


82  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

Temple,  and  openly  charged  him  with  bearing 
a  false  record  about  himself.  A  strange  dia- 
logue ensued,  in  the  course  of  which,  instead 
of  retracting  any  thing  which  he  had  formerly 
said,  or  attempting  to  explain  it  away,  Jesus 
not  only  exalted  himself  above  Abraham,  in 
whom  they  boasted,  but  declared,  in  language 
which  they  could  only  understand  as  an  as- 
sumption by  him  of  Divine  prerogatives : 
"  Before  Abraham  was,  I  am."  So  exaspe- 
rated were  they  when  he  said  this,  that  they 
took  up  stones  to  cast  at  him  ;  and  had  he  not 
made  himself  invisible,  and  so  passed  through 
the  midst  of  them,  they  would,  in  the  heat 
of  the  moment,  and  without  troubling  them- 
selves about  any  formal  trial,  have  inflicted 
on  him  the  doom  of  the  blasphemer.  Having 
lingered  for  a  few  days  longer  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Jerusalem,  wrought  a  memorable 
cure  on  the  man  born  blind,  and  delivered 
that  memorable  discourse  which  John  has  pre- 
served to  us  in  the  10th  chapter  of  his  Gos- 
pel, Jesus  again  retired  from  the  capital.  On 
his   return,   two   months   r.fterwards^   at    the 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  83 

Feast  of  Dedication,  he  was  met  as  he  walked 
in  the  Temple  in  Solomon's  Porch,  and  with 
some  show  of  candor  and  anxiety,  the  ques- 
tion was  put  to  him,  "  How  long  dost  thou 
make  us  to  doubt  ?  if  thou  be  the  Christ,  tell 
us  plainly."  Jesus  did  not  tell  them  so  plainly 
as  they  desired,  about  his  being  the  Christ, 
but  he  told  them  plainly  enough,  as  he  had 
done  before,  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God. 
"  I,"  said  he,  "  and  my  Father  are  one.  Then 
the  Jews  took  up  stones  again  to  stone  him. 
Jesus  answered  them,  Many  good  works  have 
I  showed  you  from  my  Father  :  for  which  of 
those  works  do  ye  stone  me  ?  The  Jews  an- 
swered him,  saying.  For  a  good  work  we  stone 
thee  not,  but  for  blasphemy  ;  and  because 
that  thou,  being  a  man,  makest  thyself  God." 
Again  our  Lord  had  to  protect  himself  from 
the  storm  of  their  wrath  by  retreating  to 
Persea.  The  message  from  the  mourning 
sisters  recalled  him  from  this  retreat.  The 
raising  from  the  dead  of  a  man  so  well  known 
as  Lazarus,  in  a  village  so  near  to  Jerusalem 
us  Bethany,  produced  such  an  effect  that  a 


84  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

meeting  of  the  Sanhedrim  was  summoned  to 
deliberate  as  to  what  should  be  done.  The 
design  which  they  had  so  long  cherished,  they 
now  more  deliberately  than  ever  determined 
to  accomplish  :  "  From  that  day  forth  they 
took  counsel  together  to  put  him  to  death."* 
Thouoli  hurried  at  last  in  the  time  and 
manner  of  its  execution,  it  was  no  hasty  pur- 
pose on  the  part  of  the  members  of  the  Jew- 
ish Council  to  put  our  Lord  to  death.  The 
proposal  of  Judas  did  not  take  them  by  sur- 
prise, the  arrest  in  the  garden  did  not  find 
them  unprepared.  They  must  often  have 
deliberated  how  they  should  proceed  if  they 
once  had  him  in  their  hands.  And  when  he 
was  at  last  before  them  for  formal  trial,  and 
they  were  eager  to  get  him  condemned,  they 
had  not  for  the  first  time  to  consider  what 
charges  they  should  bring  against  him,  and  by 
what  evidence  the  charges  might  be  sus- 
tained. Witnesses  enough  of  all  kinds  were 
within  their  easy  reach,  nor  had  they  any 
scruple  as  to  the  means  they  took  to  get  from 

*  John  xi.  53. 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  85 

them  the  evidence  they  wanted.  But  with 
all  their  facilities,  and  all  their  bribery, 
they  c':>uld  not  substantiate  a  single  charge 
against  Jesus  which  would  justify  them  in 
condemning  him.  Why,  when  they  found 
themselves  in  such  difficulty,  did  they  not 
summon  into  their  presence  some  of  those 
who  had  heard  Jesus  commit  that  kind  of 
blasphemy,  upon  the  ground  of  which  they 
had  twice,  upon  the  spur  of  the  moment,  at- 
tempted to  stone  him  to  death  ?  Testimony 
in  abundance  to  that  effect  must  have  been 
lying  ready  to  their  hands.  It  seems  clear  to 
us  that  the  first  and  earnest  desire  of  the 
members  of  the  Sanhedrim  was  to  convict 
Christ  of  some  other  breach  of  their  law,  suf- 
ficient to  justify  the  infliction  of  death ;  and 
that  it  was  not  till  every  attempt  of  this  kind 
had  failed,  that,  as  a  last  resort,  the  High 
Priest  put  our  Lord  himself  upon  his  oath. 
In  the  form  of  adjuration  which  he  employed, 
two  separate  questions  were  put  to  Christ : 
the  one,  Whether  he  claimed  to  be  the 
Christ ;    the  other.  Whether    he    claimed    to 


86  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

be  the  Son  of  God.  These  were  not  iden- 
tical. The  latter  title  was  not  one  which 
either  Scripture  or  Jewish  usage  had  attached 
to  the  Messiah.  The  patent  act  of  blas- 
phemy which  our  Lord  was  considered  as 
having  perpetrated  in  presence  of  the  Council 
was  not  his  having  asserted  his  Messiahship, 
but  his  having  appropriated  the  other  title  to 
himself.  When,  after  Christ  had  given  his 
first  affirmative  reply  to  the  complex  chal- 
lenge of  Caiaphas,  the  other  judges  interfered 
to  interrogate  the  prisoner,  they  dropped  all 
allusion  to  the  Messiahship.  "  Then  said 
they  all,  Art  thou  then  the  Son  of  God  ?"  and 
it  was  upon  our  Lord's  reassertion  that  he 
was, — upon  that,  and  that  alone,  that  he  was 
doomed  to  death  as  a  blasphemer.  For  it 
was  perfectly  understood  between  the  judges 
and  the  judged,  that,  in  thus  speaking  of  him- 
self, Jesus  claimed  a  peculiar,  an  intrinsic 
affinity, — oneness  in  essence,  knowledge, 
power,  and  glory,  with  the  Father.  His 
judges  took  Jesus  to  be  only  man,  and  look- 
ing upon  him  as  such,  they  were  so  far  right 


THE   SANHEDRIM  87 

in  regarding  him  as  guilty  of  blasphemous  pre- 
sumption. In  this,  then,  one  of  the  most 
solemn  moments  of  his  existence,  when  his 
character  was  at  stake,  when  life  and  death 
were  trembling  in  the  balance,  Jesus,  fully 
aware  of  the  meaning  attached  by  his  judges 
to  the  expression,  claimed  to  be  the  Son  of 
God.  He  heard,  and  heard  without  explana- 
tion or  remonstrance,  sentence  of  death  passed 
upon  him,  for  no  other  reason  whatever  but 
his  making  that  claim.  On  any  other  suppo- 
sition than  that  of  his  having  been  really  that 
which  his  judges  regarded  him  as  asserting 
that  he  was;  on  any  other  supposition  than 
that  of  his  true  and  proper  Divinit}^,  this  pas- 
sage of  the  Redeemer's  life  becomes  worse 
than  unmeaning  in  our  eyes.  There  would 
be  something  more  here  than  the  needless 
flinging  away  of  a  life,  by  the  absence  of  all 
attempt  to  remove  the  misconception  (if  mis- 
conception it  had  been),  upon  which  the  death 
sentence  had  been  based.  If  only  a  man,  if 
not  the  co-eternal,  co-equal  Son  of  the  Father, 
in  speaking  of  himself  as  he  did  before  that 


88  THE    TRIAL    BEFORE 

Jewish  Council,  Jesus  was  guilh  of  an  ex- 
tent, an  audacity,  an  effrontery  of  pretension, 
w^liich  the  bhndest,  wildest,  most  arrogant 
religious  enthusiast  has  never  exceeded.  The 
only  way  to  free  his  character  as  a  man  from 
the  stain  of  such  egregious  vanity  and  pre- 
sumption, is  to  recognize  him  as  the  Son  of 
the  Highest.  If  the  Divinity  that  was  in  him 
be  denied,  the  humanity  no  longer  stands 
stainless. 

But  we  believe  in  both,  and  see  both  mani- 
fested in  the  very  scene  that  is  here  before 
our  eyes.  Now,  with  the  eye  of  sense  we 
look  on  Jesus  as  he  stands  before  this  Jewish 
tribunal.  It  is  the  Man  of  sorrows,  despised 
and  rejected  of  men ;  treated  by  those  lordly 
judges,  and  the  brutal  band  of  servitors,  as 
the  vilest  of  felons,  the  very  refuse  of  the 
earth.  Again,  with  the  eye  of  faith  we  look 
on  him,  and  he  seems  as  if  transfigured  before 
us,  when,  breaking  the  long-kept  silence,  he 
declares,  "  I  am  the  Son  of  God,  and  hereafter 
ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man  sitting  on  the 
right  hand  of  power,  and  coming  in  the  clouds 


THE    SANHEDRIM.  89 

of  heaven,"  From  what  a  depth  of  earthly 
degradation,  to  what  a  height  of  superhuman 
dignity  does  Jesus  at  once  ascend  !  And  is 
it  not  striking  to  notice  how  he  himself  blends 
his  humiliation  and  exaltation,  his  humanity 
and  divinity,  as  he  takes  to  himself  the 
douuie  title,  and  binds  it  to  his  suffering 
brow  :  The  Son  of  3Ian  ;  the  Son  of  God. 


IV. 

Christ's  trial  before  the  Jewish  Sanhedrim, 
closed  in  his  conviction  and  condemnation. 
The  strange  commotion  on  the  bench,  in  the 
midst  of  which  the  sentence  was  pronounced, 
and  the  outbreak  of  brutal  violence  on  the 
part  of  the  menials  in  the  hall,  being  over, 
there  was  an  eager  and  hurried  consultation 
as  to  how  that  sentence  which  had  been  pro- 
nounced could  most  sj^eedily  be  executed. 
Had  the  full  power  of  carrying  out  their  own 
sentence  been  in  their  own  hands,  there  had 
been  no  difficulty  ;  Jesus  would  have  been 
led  out  instantly  to  execution.  But  Judea 
was  now  under  the  Roman  yoke  ;  one  bond 
and  badge  of  its   servitude   being  this,  that 

*'  Matt.  XY.  i. ;  Luke  xxiii  1-4;  John  xvii.  28-39. 


CHRIST    BEFORE    PILATE.  91 

while  the  old  Jewish  courts  were  permitted 
to  try  and  to  punish  minor  offences,  the  final 
judgment  of  all  capital  offences  was  reserved 
for  the  Roman  tribunals.  A  Roman  judge 
must  pass  the  sentence,  or,  at  least,  must 
sign  the  warrant  that  consigned  the  criminal 
to  execution.  At  Jerusalem,  these  reserved 
cases  were  brought  up  for  adjudication  at  the 
time  of  the  great  festivals,  when  the  Roman 
Procurator,  who  resided  ordinarily  at  Csesarea, 
visited  the  capital.  For  the  last  six  years, 
Pontius  Pilate  had  held  this  office  in  Judea, 
and  he  was  now  on  occasion  of  this  Passover 
in  the  city.  His  order,  therefore,  for  the 
execution,  must  be  obtained  that  forenoon,  or 
perhaps  not  at  all.  It  was  now  the  last  day 
before  the  Passover  on  which  a  court  of  jus- 
tice could  be  held  ;  and  if  not  held  before  six 
o'clock  that  evening,  when  the  Passover 
period  began,  then  not  for  seven  days  there- 
after." To  keep  Christ  so  long  in  bonds, 
awaiting  his  presentation  to  the  Roman  judge, 
■ — with  an  uncertainty,  besides,  whether  Pilate 
would  take  up  the  case  after  the  Passover,^ 


92  Christ's  first  appearance 

that  were  a  risk  too  perilous  to  run.  They 
had,  indeed,  the  whole  day  before  them,  and 
there  was  time  enough  to  get  Pilate's  judg- 
ment before  the  Passover  commenced ;  but 
to  keep  Jesus  not  only  bound,  but  bound 
with  the  order  for  his  crucifixion  hanging 
over  him  ;  to  keep  him  so  for  eight  days  to 
come ;  to  keep  him  so  till  not  only  citizens 
of  Jerusalem,  but  the  inhabitants  of  the  whole 
region  round  about,  had  heard  all  the  particu- 
lars of  his  apprehension  and  condemnation, — • 
that  also  were  peril  w^hich  must,  if  possible, 
be  avoided.  And  it  could  only  be  avoided 
by  getting  the  crucifixion  over  before  that  sun 
which  was  just  about  to  rise  had  set. 

Obviously  there  was  urgent  need  of  haste. 
The  consultation,  therefore,  was  a  brief  and  a 
hurried  one.  The  resolution  was  taken  to 
bind  Jesus  once  more — bind  him  as  men  con- 
demned to  death  were  wont  to  be  bound — 
and  to  carry  him  at  once  to  Pilate,  and  get 
from  him  the  authority  to  proceed.  Thither, 
therefore,  to  the  official  residence  of  the  Pro- 
curator, accompanied  by  the  whole  multitude 


BEFORE   PILATE.  93 

that  had  assembled  in  and  around  the  hall  of 
Caiaphas,  Jesus  is  conveyed.  It  is  a  house 
which  the  Gentile  has  occupied  and  polluted  ; 
a  house  from  which  the  leaven  has  not  been 
cast  out ;  a  house  to  cross  whose  threshold 
at  such  a  time  as  this,  on  the  very  eve  of 
the  Passover, — was  to  disqualify  the  entrant 
from  all  participation  in  the  holy  rite.  And 
though  there  be  among  their  number  those 
who,  from  their  position  and  previous  ac- 
quaintance, might  well  have  claimed  the  priv- 
ilege of  access,  and  asked  a  private  audience 
of  Pilate,  to  explain  to  him  the  nature  of  the 
case  in  which  his  interference  at  such  an 
unseasonable  hour  was  required,  yet  will  not 
one  of  these  precise,  punctilious  chief  priests, 
scribes,  and  councillors  venture  into  that 
dwelling,  lest  they  should  be  defiled.  They 
send  in  their  message  by  some  of  Pilate's 
officers  or  servants.  At  once,  with  Roman 
courtesy,  he  comes  out  to  them — to  where 
they  are  all  standing  around  the  bound  and 
sentenced  Jesus.  The  glance  of  a  quick  eye 
at  once  revealed  to  Pilate  the  general  object 


94  CHRIST'S    FIRST    APPEARANCE 

of  this  early  visit.  These,  he  knew,  as  hig 
eye  ran  round  the  leaders  of  the  crowd,  ^^ere 
the  Jewish  judges,  and  this,  as  that  eye  rested 
upon  Jesus,  some  one  whom  they  were  anx- 
ious to  get  punished.  But  why  all  this  haste  ? 
What  can  it  have  been  that  has  brouoht 
together,  at  such  an  unusual  hour,  all  these 
city  magnates,  and  drawn  them  as  suppliants 
to  his  door  ?  What  extraordinary  crime  can 
this  man,  whom  they  have  borne  to  him,  have 
committed,  that  they  are  so  impatient  to  see 
him  punished  ?  He  looks  at  Christ  again. 
He  had  tried  many ;  he  had  condemned 
many  ;  his  practised  eye  was  familiar  with 
the  features  which  great  guilt  ordinarily 
wears,  but  he  had  never  seen  a  great  criminal 
look  as  this  man  looks  ;  nothing  here  either 
of  that  sunk  and  hollow  aspect  that  those 
convicted  of  great  crimes  sometimes  show  ; 
nothing  here  of  that  bold  and  brazen  front 
with  which  they  still  more  frequently  are 
wont  to  face  their  doom  :  he  looks  so  gentle, 
so  meek,  so  innocent,  yet  so  calm,  so  self-pos- 
sessed, so  dignified.     It  does  not  seem  that 


BEFORE    PILATE.  95 

Pilate  knew  at  first  who  this  bound  one  was 
that  now  stood  there  before  him.  He  must 
have  heard  something,  perhaps  much,  of  Je- 
sus of  Nazareth  before.  He  had  been  gover- 
nor of  the  country  all  through  the  years  of 
our  Lord's  public  ministry,  and  it  could 
scarcely  be  but  that  some  report  of  his  great 
sayings  and  doings  must  have  reached  his 
ear  ;  but  no  more,  perhaps,  than  Herod  had 
he  ever  met  him — ever  seen  him  face  to  face ; 
nor  does  he  yet  know  that  this  is  he.  He 
only  knows  and  feels  that  never  has  his  eye 
rested  upon  one  more  unlike  a  hardened  rep- 
robate than  this.  His  curiosity  roused,  his 
interest  excited,  the  favorable  impression 
which  this  first  sight  of  the  accused  has  made, 
co-operating  with  the  instinctive  and  official 
sense  of  justice,  Pilate's  first  words  to  these 
judges  and  heads  of  the  Jewish  people  are, 
"  What  accusation  bring  ye  against  this  man  ?" 
Was  that  question  put  in  such  a  way,  was  it 
spoken  in  such  a  tone,  or  accompanied  by  such 
a  look  as  to  convey  the  idea  that  the  ques- 
tioner was  not  at  once  ready  to  believe  that 


93  CHRIST'S    FIRST    APPEARANCE 

any  very  heinous  offence  had  been  committed 
by  that  man  ?  Perlinps  it  did  carry  with  it 
some  indication  of  that  kind.  But  whether 
so  or  not,  it  indicated  this,  that  Pilate  meant 
to  open  up  or  re-try  the  case,  or,  at  least,  to 
get  at  and  go  over,  upon  his  own  account,  the 
ground  of  their  condemnation  ere  he  ratified 
it.  He  could  not  but  know — if  he  had  not 
been  distinctly  told  by  the  messengers  whom 
the  Jews  sent  to  him,  he  saw  it  plainly 
enough  in  all  the  attendant  circumstances — 
what  it  was  that  these  Jews  were  expecting 
him  to  do.  But  he  will  do  it  in  his  own  way. 
He  will  not  sign  off-hand,  upon  their  credit 
and  at  their  bidding,  the  death-warrant  of  a 
man  like  this.  Had  he  been  a  judge  of  the 
purest  and  strictest  honor,  he  would  not  have 
signed  in  such  a  hurried  way  the  death-war- 
rant of  any  one  ;  but  we  know  it  from  other 
sources,  and  the  Jews  who  stood  before  him 
knew  it  too,  that  he  was  not  such  a  judge, 
that  he  had  often  condemned  without  a  hear- 
ing. And  it  is  this  which  inclines  us  to  be- 
lieve  that  there  was  something  in  the  very 


BEFORE    PILATE.  97 

first  impression  that  our  Lord's  appearance 
made  upon  Pilate  which  touched  the  better 
part  of  his  nature,  and  not  only  stirred  within 
his  heart  the  wish  to  know  v/hat  it  was  of 
■which  they  .accused  such  a  man,  but  also  the 
desire  to  ascertain,  for  his  own  satisfaction, 
whether  or  not  that  accusation  was  w^ell 
founded. 

Obviously,  to  the  men  to  whom  it  was  ad- 
dressed, Pilate's  question  was  a  disappointing 
one.  They  did  not  want,  they  had  not  ex- 
pected, to  be  summoned  thus  to  adduce  and 
to  substantiate  some  charge  against  Jesus, 
which,  in  Pilate's  judgment,  might  be  suffi- 
cient to  doom  him  to  death.  They  had  hoped 
that  to  save  himself  the  trouble  of  investiga- 
tion, and  in  compliment  to  them  at  this  Pass- 
over season — a  compliment  which,  when  it 
cost  him  nothing,  they  knew  that  he  was  quite 
w^illing  to  pay — he  would  take  their  judgment 
on  trust  and  proceed  upon  it.  And  they  still 
hope  so.  They  will  let  Pilate  know  how 
good  a  right  they  have  to  expect  this  service 
at  his  hand  ;  how  much  they  will  be  offended 


98  CHRIST'S    FIRST   APPEARANCE 

if  he  refuse  it.  When  the  question,  then,  ig 
put  to  them,  "  What  accusation  bring  ye 
against  this  man  ?"  they  content  themselves 
with  saying,  "  If  he  were  not  a  malefactor, 
we  would  not  have  delivered  him  up  to  thee," 
— words  of  haughtiness  and  injured  pride. 
"  Do  you  think  that  we,  the  whole  assembled 
Sanhedrim ;  we,  the  very  first  men  in  this 
Jewish  community  over  which  you  happen  to 
have  been  placed  ;  we,  who  have  come  to  you, 
as  we  are  not  often  wont  to  do,  and  are  here 
before  your  gates  to  ask  a  verj^  easy  act  of 
comphance  with  our  will, — do  you  think  that 
we  would  have  brought  this  man  to  you,  if 
we  had  not  already  ascertained  his  guilt  ? 
Do  you  think  that  we  would  either  have  ven- 
tured to  offer  such  an  insult  to  you,  or  our- 
selves perpetrate  such  injustice  ?"  A  very 
high  tone  this  to  take,  which  they  have  some 
hope  will  yet  carry  their  point  for  them  with 
the  weak  and  vacillating  governor.  They  are 
disappointea.  They  have  stirred  a  pride  that 
is  equal  to  their  own.  If  those  Jews  won't 
tell  him  what  kind  or  degree  of  criminality  it 


BEFORE    PILATE.  99 

i«  that  they  attribute  to  this  man,  he.  Pihite, 
won't  put  himself  as  a  blind  tool  into  their 
hands.  "  If  it  be  your  judgment,  and  your 
judgment  alone,  that  is  to  rule  this  man's  case, 
'  Take  ye  him,  then,'  said  Pilate,  '  and  judge 
him  according  to  your  own  law  ;'  " — a  refusal 
on  Pilate's  part  to  do  the  thing  which  they 
first  hoped  that  they  might  get  him  to  do  off- 
hand ;  a  refusal  to  countersign  their  sentence, 
whatever  it  was,  and  by  whatever  evidence 
supported.  It  was  as  much  as  saying,  that 
so  far  as  he  had  yet  heard  or  known  any  thing 
of  this  case,  it  was  one  which  their  own  law, 
as  administered  by  themselves,  was  quite 
competent  to  deal  with. 

Let  them  take  this  man,  and  judge  him 
and  punish  him  as  they  pleased,  provided 
only  that  they  kept  strictly  within  the  limits 
that  their  conquerors  had  laid  down. — This 
were  wholly  to  miss  their  mark.  Their  tone 
changes ;  their  pride  humbles  itself.  They 
are  obliged  to  explain  to  the  Governor,  what 
he  had  known  well  enough  from  the  first,  but 
what  they  had  not  been  candid  enough  to  tell 


100  CHRIST'S    FIRST   APPEARANCE 

him,  that  it  was  a  sentence  unto  death  which 
they  wdshed  to  get  executed,  a  sentence 
which  they  were  not  at  liberty  to  carry  out. 
This  determination  of  Pilate  to  make  personal 
inquiry  into  the  grounds  of  that  sentence, 
obliged  them  also  to  lodge  some  distinct  and 
specific  charge  against  Jesus ; — one  of  such  a 
kind  that  the  Governor  would  be  forced  to 
deal  with  it ;  one  too  of  sufficient  magnitude 
to  draw  down  upon  it  the  panishment  of 
death.  Now  mark  the  deep  hypocrisy  and 
utter  falseness  of  these  men.  It  won't  do 
now  to  say  that  it  was  as  a  blasphemer,  and 
as  that  alono,  in  calling  himself  the  Son  of 
God,  that  Jesus  had  been  condemned  before 
their  bar.  It  won't  do  to  let  Pilate  know 
anything  of  that  one  and  only  piece  of  evi- 
dence upon  wdiich  their  sentence  has  been 
founded.  What  cares  he  about  that  kind  of 
blasphemy  of  which  Jesus  has  been  convicted ; 
what  cares  that  Roman  law,  of  which  he  is 
the  administrator,  who  or  what  any  man 
thinks  himself  to  be,  or  claims  to  be,  in  his 
relationship  with  God  ?     Let  any  Jew  be  but 


BEFORE    PILATE.  101 

a  good  and  faithful  subject  to  Ceesar,  and,  so 
far  as  Caesar  or  Caesar's  representatives  are 
concerned,  he  may  claim  any  rank  he  pleases 
among  the  gods.  It  was  necessary,  there- 
fore, to  draw  the  thickest  A^eil  of  concealment 
over  their  own  procedure  as  judges,  although 
before  the  examination  at  this  new  bar  was 
over,  it  oozed  out  that  Jesus  had  made  him- 
self the  Son  of  God, — with  what  strange  effect 
upon  Pilate's  mind  we  shall  presently  see. 
But,  in  the  first  instance,  some  civil  or  poli- 
tical offence,  some  crime  against  the  common 
law  of  the  land,  must  be  sought  for  to  charge 
against  Jesus.  It  was  not  easy  to  find  or 
fabricate  such  a  crime.  Our  Saviour  had 
throughout  most  carefully  and  cautiously 
avoided  everything  like  interference  or  inter- 
meddling with,  condemning  or  resisting,  the 
ordinary  administration  of  law,  the  policy  and 
procedure  of  the  government.  He  refused  to 
entertain  a  question  about  the  rights  of  in- 
heritance between  two  brothers,  saying  to 
him  who  sought  his  interference,  "  Man,  who 
made   me    a  judge  or  a    ruler    over    you?" 


102  CHRIST'S    FIRST   APPEARANCE 

These  very  men,  who  are  now  about  to  frame 
their  first  accusation  of  him  before  Pilate, 
had  tried  to  get  him  to  pass  his  judgment 
upon  the  abstract  question  as  to  whether  it 
was  lawful  to  pay  tribute  to  Cyesar  or  not, 
and  had  failed  in  their  attempt  to  entangle 
him.  What  concealment,  then,  what  decep- 
tion, what  effrontery  of  falsehood  in  it, — 
and  it  shows  to  what  extremity  they  were 
driven, — that  when  forced  to  adduce  some 
specific  accusation,  they  said,  "  We  found 
this  fellow  perverting  the  nation,  and  forbid- 
ding to  give  tribute  to  Csesar,  saying  that 
he  himself  is  Christ  a  King !"  They  here 
bring  three  different  accusations  against  him, 
not  one  of  which — in  that  sense  in  which 
alone  they  desire  that  Pilate  should  under- 
stand them — they  know  is  true ;  and  one  of 
which,  the  central  one  of  the  three,  they 
know  is  absolutely,  and  in  every  sense  of 
it,  false.  But  it  suits  their  object  to  repre- 
sent the  accused  to  Pilate  as  a  stirrer  up  of 
sedition,  as  a  refusei  to  pay  custom,  as  a 
denier  of   the  Romai     right    to    reign    over 


BEFORE    PILATE.  103 

Judea,  as  a  claimant  to  be  king  of  the  coun- 
try, in  his  own  jierson  and  of  his  own  right. 
These,  however,  were  charges  which  they 
knew  that  a  Roman  governor,  whose  chief 
business  in  their  country  was  to  see  that  the 
rights  of  the  Emperor  whom  he  represented 
should  suffer  no  damage,  could  not  pass  by ; 
charges  by  no  means  unlikely  to  be  true,  for 
Judea  was  at  this  time  in  a  most  unsettled 
state.  There  were  multitudes  of  Jews  who 
questioned  Caesar's  right  to  tax  them ;  mul- 
titudes who  regarded  him  as  a  foreign  usurper. 
Give  them  but  a  chance  of  success,  and  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  w^  ould  have  risen 
then,  as  they  rose  afterwards,  and  risked 
their  lives  to  regain  their  national  liberties. 
One  thing  alone  was  suspicious — that  such  an 
accusation  should  come  from  such  a  quarter ; 
that  those  leaders  of  the  Jews  should  be  so 
very  eager  to  get  a  man  punished  for  such  a 
crime.  It  surely  could  not  be  so  mighty  an 
offence  in  their  eyes.  They  were  not  them- 
selves so  very  loyal  to  Rome  as  to  be  anxious 
to  see  a  resistor  of  the  Roman  power  cut  off. 


104  CHRIST'S   FIRST   APPEARANCE 

Never  before,  at  least,  had  they  displayed 
giny  great  zeal  in  that  dbection.  Pilate  had 
no  faith  in  their  sincerity.  He  saw  through 
their  designs.  Perhaps  it  was  now  that,  for 
the  first  time,  he  recognized  that  it  was  with 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  of  whom  he  had  heard 
so  much,  that  he  had  to  do.  He  did  not  en- 
tertain, because  he  did  not  believe,  the  charge 
of  his  being  a  seditious  and  rebellious  sub- 
ject. But  there  was  one  part  of  the  accusa- 
tion which  was  quite  new  to  him,  which 
sounded  ridiculous  in  his  ears,  that  this  poor 
Nazarene  should  say  that  he  was  a  king,  the 
king  of  the  Jews, — a  very  preposterous  pre- 
tension ;  one  sufficient  of  itself,  if  there  was 
any  real  ground  for  saying  that  it  ever  had 
actually  been  set  forth,  to  suggest  a  doubt  as 
to  whether  Jesus  was  a  fit  subject  for  any 
judicial  procedure  whatever  being  taken 
against  him.  Overlooking  all  else  that  had 
been  said  against  him,  Pilate  turns  to  Christ, 
and  says  to  him,  ^'  Art  thou  the  king  of  the 
Jews?"  He  expected  nothing  else  than  to 
get  an  immediate  disclaimer  of  the  absurd 


BEFORE    PILATE.  105 

pretension.  To  his  surprise,  however,  Jesus 
cahiily  and  deliberately  replies,  '•  Thou  sayest 
it, — I  am  the  king  of  the  Jews."  Very  curious 
this,  to  hear  such  a  man,  in  such  a  condition, 
and  in  such  circumstances,  speak  in  such  a 
way.  He  must  be  some  egregious,  designing, 
perhaps  dangerous  impostor,  or,  more  likely, 
some  wretched,  ignorant,  half-mad  enthusiast 
or  fanatic.  He  would  like  to  search  a  little 
into  the  matter,  and  find  out  how  it  really 
stood.  The  man  himself  would  in  all  likeli- 
hood be  the  first  to  supply  the  clue ;  he  had 
so  Avillingly  and  so  calmly  answered  that  first 
question  that  he  would  answer  others.  But 
it  would  be  better  to  interrogate  him  alone, 
away  from  these  accusers  of  his.  He  might 
not  be  so  ready  to  answer  further  questions 
in  their  hearing,  or  they  might  interfere  and 
prevent  Pilate  prosecuting  the  inquiry  in  his 
own  way.  He  retires,  therefore,  to  his  own 
dwelling,  into  that  part  of  it  called  and  used 
generally  as  the  Judgment  Hall,  and  calls 
upon  Christ  to  follow  him.  Jesus  at  once 
consents.     He  makes  no  scruple  about  cross- 

5* 


106  CHRIST'S    FIRST    APPEARANCE 

ing  that  threshold  :  lie  fears  no  contagion  from 
contact  with  the  Gentile ;  his  passover  has 
been  already  held.  And  now,  when  they  are 
alone,  out  of  sight  and  out  of  hearing  of  those 
Jews,  Pilate  says  again  to  him  in  a  subdued 
and  under-tone,  as  of  one  really  anxious  to 
get  at  the  truth,  "  Art  thou  the  King  of  the 
Jews  ?"  Waiving  in  the  meantime  anything 
like  a  direct  reply,  Jesus  said  to  him,  "  Say  est 
thou  this  thing  of  thyself,  or  did  others  tell  it 
thee  of  me  ?"  ''  Art  thou  but  repeating  the 
words  of  others,  or  art  thou  asking  out  of  the 
dej)ths  of  thine  own  inquiring  spirit?  Hast 
thou  too,  Pilate,  for  that  unruled,  unruly 
spirit  of  thine,  felt  the  inward  need  of  some 
one  to  be  its  Governor  and  Lord  ?  Lies  there 
behind  the  outward  form  and  meaning  of  that 
question  of  thine,  the  indistinct,  the  inarticu- 
late longing  after  another  king  and  another 
kingdom  ihan  either  Jews  or  Romans  own  ?' 
Was  there  indeed,  for  one  passing  moment, 
far  down  in  the  depths  of  Pilate's  straggling 
thoughts,  an  element  of  this  kind  at  work ; 
and  did  Jesus,  knowing  that  it  Avas  there,  try 


BEFORE    PILATE.  107 

thus  to  bring  it  up,  that  he  might  proceed  to 
satisfy  it  ?  If  so,  what  a  moment  of  tran- 
scendent interest  to  the  Roman  judge,  of 
which,  had  he  but  known  how  to  take  ad- 
vantage, he  too  might  have  entered  the  king- 
dom, and  shared  its  securities  and  blessedness. 
But  he  does  not,  he  will  not  stoop  to  acknowl- 
edge, what  we  suspect  was  true,  that  there 
did  mingle  in  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of 
that  moment  some  element  of  the  kind  de- 
scribed. This  is  too  personal,  too  bold,  too 
home  a  question  of  the  Nazarene.  The  pride 
of  the  Roman,  the  judge,  swells  up  within  his 
breast,  and  quenches  the  interests  of  the  man, 
the  sinner — and  so  he  haughtily  replies  :  '''Am 
I  a  Jew  ?  Thine  own  nation,  and  the  chief 
priests,  have  delivered  thee  unto  me  :  what 
hast  thou  done  ?"  The  chance  of  reaching 
the  individual  conscience  of  the  questioner 
has  passed  away ;  the  trial  has  been  made, 
and  it  has  failed ;  Jesus  must  take  up  the 
question  not  as  one  between  him  and  Pilate — • 
between  Pilate's  conscience  and  Pilate's  God — • 
but  as  one  simply  between  himself  an  a  sen- 


108  CHRIST'S    FIRST    APPEARANCE 

tenced  ciiminal,  and  those  Jews  without,  who 
are  his  accusers.  He  will  not  answer  the  last 
question  of  the  Governor,  "  What  hast  thou 
done  ?" — upon  that  he  will  not  enter ;  it 
would  be  of  no  avail ;  but  he  will  satisfy 
Pilate  upon  one  point.  He  will  convince  him 
that  he  has  committed  no  political  offence ; 
that  he  never  meant  to  set  himself  in  opposi- 
tion to  any  of  this  world's  governments.  "  My 
kingdom,"  said  he,  "  is  not  of  this  world.  If 
my  kingdom  were  of  this  world,  then  would 
my  servants  fight,  that  I  should  not  be  deliv- 
ered to  the  Jews :  but  now  is  my  kingdom 
not  from  hence  :"  a  kingdom  rising  up  among 
the  others  of  the  world,  to  struggle  for  its  ex- 
istence, to  establish,  to  protect,  to  extend  it- 
self, by  earthly  weapons,  by  outward  force  of 
any  kind, — not  such  is  that  kingdom  which  I 
Jesus  call  my  own. 

But  if  not,  what  kind  of  kingdom  can  it 
be  ?  what  kind  of  king  is  he  who  rules  it  ? 
So  far  satisfied,  yet  still  wondering  and  per- 
plexed, Pilate  puts  his  question,  not  in  its 
first  specific  form,  but  in  a  more  general  one  : 


BEFORE    PILATE.  109 

"  Art  thou  a  king  then  ?"  "  If  not  a  king, 
like  our  own  Caesars  or  your  own  Herods,  if 
not  a  king  to  fight  with  rival  sovereigns,  or 
ask  thy  subjects  to  fight  for  thee,  then  in 
what  sense  a  king  ?"  Our  Lord's  reply,  we 
can  perceive,  was  particularly  adapted  to  the 
position,  character,  acquirements,  experience 
of  his  questioner, — a  Roman  official  of  high 
rank,  educated,  cultivated  ;  a  man  of  affairs, 
of  large  experience  of  men — men  in  different 
countries  and  of  different  creeds  ;  not  given 
much,  perhaps,  to  any  deep  or  serious  thought 
about  religious  matters,  yet  sufficiently  ac- 
quainted with  the  rival  schools  of  philosophy 
and  religion  by  which  the  then  great  living 
Roman  commonwealth  was  divided  and  dis- 
tracted. Truth,  moral  truth,  religious  truth, 
was  the  one  proclaimed  object  of  research,  of 
which  some  were  saying.,  Lo,  here  it  is,  and 
others,  Lo,  there  it  is ;  but  of  which  he, 
Pilate,  in  pursuit  of  quite  a  different  object, 
had  learned  to  think  that  neither  here  nor  there 
nor  anywhere  was  it  to  be  found.  It  is  to 
this  man  that  Jesus   says,  speaking  in  the 


110  CHRI&T'S    FIRST   APPEARANCE 

language  that  would  be  most  intelligible  to 
him  :  "  Thou  sayest  that  I  am  a  king.     To 
this  end  was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause  came 
I  into  the  world,  that  I  should  bear  witness 
unto  the  truth.     Every  one   that  is   of  the 
truth  heareth   my  voice."     As   these  words 
fell  upon  the    ear  of   Pilate,   one    can   well 
enough   imagine    that    the     current    of    his 
thoughts   ran  thus  : — "  It  is  even  as  I  sus- 
pected ;  here  is  another  of  these  pretenders, 
who  each  would  have  us  to  believe  that  he 
alone  had  discovered  the  undiscoverable,  that 
he   alone  has  found   out  and   got  exclusive 
possession  of  the  truth  ;  here  is  a  new  Jewish 
rival  of  those  old  Stoics  of  our  own,  who  were 
ever  teaching  us  that  every  wise  man  was  a 
king, — the  setter  up  of  a  new  system,  which 
he  imasrines  is  to  dethrone  everv  other  one 
that  the  world  before  has  seen,  whose  fancy 
is  that  he  himself  is  already  upon  the  throne 
of  his  great  kingdom, — some  poor  egotisticil, 
yet  quite  harmless   enthusiast,   ^Those    day- 
dream who  would  wish  to  break  ?     One  thing, 
at  least,  is  clear  enough,  that  it  is  a  quite 


BEFORE    PILATE.  Ill 

empty,  hollow  charge  these  Jews  are  urging 
here  against  him.  He  may  sit  as  long  as  he 
likes  upon  that  ideal  throne  of  his,  without 
the  throne  of  Tiberius  being  endangered  ;  he 
may  get  as  many  subjects  as  he  can  to  enter 
that  ideal  kingdom  of  his,  and  my  master,  the 
Emperor,  have  not  a  loyal  subject  the  less." 
And  so  with  that  passing  question  to  Jesus, 
"  What  is  truth  ?" — a  question  he  does  not 
sta}^  to  get  answered,  as  he  has  no  faith  that 
any  answer  to  it  can  be  given ;  a  question 
not  uttered  sneeringly  or  scoffingly,  but  rather 
sadly  and  bitterly,  so  far  as  he  himself  is 
concerned,  having  come  to  regard  all  truth  as 
a  phantom  ;  and  with  a  kindly,  tolerant,  half- 
pitying,  half-envious  feeling  towards  Jesus, — 
with  that  question  put  to  Jesus  by  the  way, 
Pilate  goes  out  to  the  Jews,  and  says  to  them 
boldly  and  emphatically,  "  I  find  in  him  no 
fault  at  all  ;" — the  faultlessness  of  Christ  ac- 
knowledged, his  kingly  claims  scarcely  com- 
prehended, and  so  far  as  comprehended,  re- 
jected, perhaps  despised. 

Let   each   of  us    now   ask   himself.   How 


112  CHRIST'S   FIRST   APPEARANCE 

stands  it  as  to  me  and  this  kingdom  of  the 
truth,  this  one  great  King  of  the  true  ?  Is 
Jesus  Christ  to  me  the  way,  the  truth,  the 
life  ?  Does  truth,  simple,  pure,  eternal  truth, 
stand  expressed  and  exhibited  to  me  in  those 
words,  those  prayers,  those  acts,  those  suffer- 
ings, that  life,  that  death,  of  Jesus  Christ  ? 
The  witness  that  he  bore  to  the  truth,  in  the 
living  of  that  life  and  the  dying  of  that  death, 
— have  I  listened  to  it,  and  believed  in  it, 
and  submitted  to  it  ?  Am  I  of  the  truth ;  a 
simple,  humble,  earnest  seeker  after  it ;  and 
have  I  this  evidence  of  my  being  so,  that  I 
hear  the  voice  of  Jesus,  hear  it  and  hail  it, 
among  all  the  conflicting  voices  that  are  fall- 
ing on  my  ear,  as  the  voice  of  him  who  right- 
fully claims  the  lordship  of  my  soul  ?  Is 
truth — the  truth  as  to  God,  my  Creator,  my 
Father,  my  Redeemer ;  the  truth  as  to  my- 
self, what  I  am,  what  I  ought  to  be,  what  I 
may  be,  what  I  shall  be, — ^is  this  truth  not  a 
mere  form  of  sound  words,  not  a  mere  con- 
geries of  acknowledged  or  accepted  proposi- 
tions ;  but  does  [t  stand  before  me  embodied 


BEFORE    PILATE.  113 

in  the  person,  the  life,  the  death,  the  medita- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ ;  and  have  I  enshrined 
and  enthroned  him  as  King  and  Lord  of  my 
weak,  my  sinful,  my  immortal  spirit  ? 


V. 

Jesus  had  spoken  quite  frankly  and  openly 
to  Pilate  when  they  were  together,  out  of 
sight  and  hearing  of  the  Jews,  alone  in  the 
Judgment  Hall.  It  was  quite  different  when, 
accompanied  by  Christ,  Pilate  came  out  again 
to  the  attendant  crowd,  and  boldly  said  to 
them,  "  I  find  no  fault  in  this  man."  So  far, 
then,  the  Chief  Priests  and  Elders  have  failed. 
Failure  always  embitters.  Failure  here  was 
\yhat  these  men  were  by  no  means  disposed 
to  submit  to.  Pilate's  assertion  of  his  belief 
in  the  innocence  of  Jesus  only  made  them  the 
more  vehement  in  their  assertion  of  his  crim- 
inality.   They  became  the  more  fierce.    They 

*  Matt,  xxvii.  12,  13     Mark  vi.  14-16;  Luke  ix.  7-9;  xiii.  31, 
32.  xxiil  4-12. 


APPEARANCE    BEFORE    HEROD.  115 

accused  him,  Mark  tell  uis,  of  many  things. 
But  the  waves  and  the  billows  of  this  swell- 
ing wrath  of  theirs  broke  harmlessly  upon 
Christ.  So  absent,  so  unmoved,  so  indiffer- 
ent did  he  appear,  that  it  seemed  as  if  he  had 
not  heard  what  they  were  saying  against  him, 
or  hearing  had  not  understood,  or  understand- 
ing had  not  heeded.  Very  different  his  re- 
tirement into  himself, — this  unruffled  com- 
posure, this  unbroken  silence,  from  those 
eager  and  animated  utterances  to  which  the 
Governor  had  just  been  listening  in  the  hall 
within.  Perhaps  it  is  wounded  pride  that 
seals  the  lips  of  Jesus.  To  men  like  these, 
animated  by  such  a  bitter  personal  hostility 
to  him,  exhausting  every  epithet  of  vitupera- 
tion, heaping  upon  him  all  kinds  of  charges, 
Jesus  may  not  choose  to  condescend  to  give 
any  answer.  But  he  has  not  treated,  will 
not  treat,  the  Roman  governor  in  the  same 
way ;  at  least  will  surely  tell  him  why  it  is 
that  he  preserves  this  silence.  Pilate  says  to 
him,  "  Hearest  thou  not  how  many  things  they 
witness  against  thee  ?"     There  is  no  reply. 


116  CHRIST'S   APPEARANCE 

The  lips  are  as  shut  at  the  question  of  Pilate 
as  at  the  accusation  of  the  Jews.  Clhrist  has 
said  all  that  he  meant  to  say,  done  all  that 
he  meant  to  do,  so  far  as  those  charges  were 
concerned  that  they  were  now  bringing 
against  him.  He  had  answered  to  the 
Roman  judge  that  the  kingship  which  he 
claimed  was  not  of  a  kind  in  any  way  to 
interfere  with  this  world's  governments  ;  he 
had  satisfied  him  of  his  perfect  innocuous- 
ness  as  a  subject  of  the  State ;  and,  having 
done  that,  he  would  say  and  do  no  more. 

One  observes  an  almost  exact  parallel  as  to 
his  silences  and  his  speakings  in  our  Lord's 
conduct  before  the  Jewish  and  the  Gentile 
courts  of  justice.  In  that  preliminary  unoffi- 
cial conversation  he  held  with  Annas  before 
the  Sanhedrim  sat  in  judgment  on  his  case, 
Jesus  had  spoken  without  reserve,  had  an- 
swered the  High  Priest's  questions  but  too 
fully,  and  had  brought  down  upon  himself 
the  stroke  of  the  officer  who  stood  by.  But 
when  the  regular  trial  commenced,  and 
charges  were  formally  brought  forward,  and 


BEFORE   HEROD.  117 

attempted  by  many  witnesses  to  be  substan- 
tiated, Jesus  held  his  peace,  so  long  and  so 
resolutely,  manifesting  so  little  disposition  or 
desire  to  medde  in  any  way  with  the  pro- 
cedure that  was  going  on,  that  the  High 
Priest  rose  from  his  seat  in  the  midst,  and 
put  to  him  a  question  of  the  same  import 
with  that  which  Pilate  afterwards  put ;  and 
the  two  questions  met  with  the  very  same 
treatment, — to  neither  of  them  a  single  word 
of  reply  was  given.  But  when  the  High 
Priest  rose,  and  solemnly  adjured  Jesus  to 
tell  whether  he  was  the  Christ  the  Son  of 
God,  just  as  wdien  Pilate  asked  whether  he 
was  the  King  of  the  Jews,  and  what  kind 
of  king  he  was,  our  Lord  made  instant  and 
distinct  and  unambiguous  reply.  So  far  as 
we  can  see  or  understand  the  principle  ruling 
here  the  Saviour's  conduct,  determining  the 
time  to  speak  and  the  time  to  be  silent,  it 
was  this  :  that  when  the  matter  immediately 
and  directly  concerns  his  Divine  Sonship  and 
Kingship,  he  will  help  his  judges  in  every 
way  he  can ;  nay,  he  will  liimself  supply  the 


118  CHRIST'S    APPEARANCE 

evidence  they  want.  Upon  that  count  he 
will  allow  himself  to  be  condemned ;  he  will 
co-operate  with  his  enemies  in  the  bringing 
about  of  his  condemnation ;  but  of  all  these 
other  lesser  trifling  charges  he  will  take  no 
account;  but  leave  all  their  manifold  attempts 
to  fasten  on  him  any  other  kind  of  charge,  to 
break  down  of  themselves,  that,  his  enemies 
themselves  being  witnesses,  it  might  be  solely 
and  alone  as  the  Son  of  God,  the  King  of 
Israel,  that  he  should  be  convicted,  con- 
demned, and  crucified. 

Among  the  many  things  that  the  Chief 
Priests  were  now  accusing  Jesus  of  in  the 
presence  of  the  Governor,  hoping  still  to 
convince  Pilate  that  he  was  not  the  guiltless 
man  that  he  had  taken  him  to  be,  there  was 
one  thing  that  they  put  prominently  forward, 
presented  in  every  form,  amplified  in  every 
way,  on  which  they  mainly  relied  in  their 
dealings  with  Pilate, — the  setting  forth  of 
Christ  as  a  ringleader  of  sedition.  "  He  stir- 
reth  up  the  people,"  stirreth  them  up  against 
the  constituted  authorities,  preaching  rel)el- 


BEFORE  HEROD.  119 

lion  through  the  whole  country,  not  here  in 
Judea  alone,  but  there  also  in  Galilee  where 
he  began  this  work.  This  allusion  to  Galilee 
as  the  birthplace  of  the  alleged  seditious 
movement  may  have  been  accidental ;  they 
may  have  meant  merely  thereby  to  signify 
how  widespread  the  evil  had  been  which 
they  were  calling  upon  Pilate  to  check ;  or  it 
may  have  been  done  designedly,  with  that  art 
which  was  to  leave  nothing  unsaid  or  unsug- 
gested,  by  which  the  Governor  could  possibly 
be  influenced.  Galilee  might  have  been 
named  by  them,  to  suggest  to  Pilate  how  dif- 
ficult it  was  to  produce  proof  of  crime  com- 
mitted in  so  remote  a  district ;  or  to  remind 
him  that  this  Galilee,  upon  which  so  much  of 
Christ's  time  and  labor  had  been  spent,  was 
the  chosen  haunt  of  the  resistors  of  the 
Roman  authority,  the  cradle  of  most  of  the 
seditious  plots  concocted  against  the  Emper- 
or's government ;  or  they  might  have  known 
of  the  bad  feeling  thai  there  was  at  this 
time  between  Pilate  and  the  King  of  Galilee, 
and  might  have  imagined  that   it  would  be 


120  CHRIST'S    APPEARANCE 

rather  gratifying  to  Pilate  than  otherwise  to 
lay  his  hand  judicially  upon  one  who  might 
be  regarded  as  a  subject  of  that  prince. 

However  it  was,  no  sooner  had  the  words 
escaped  their  lips,  than  a  happy  thought  sug- 
gests itself  to  Pilate.  He  is  in  great  diffi- 
culty with  this  case ;  he  knows  not  how  to 
deal  with  it.  He  had  never  been  so  impor- 
tuned as  he  now  w^as  by  those  Chief  Priests 
and  elders ;  he  never  saw  them  more  bent  on 
anything  than  on  the  death  of  this  man  whom 
they  have  brought  to  him ;  it  would  be  easy 
to  give  him  up  to  their  vengeance — he  had 
done  as  much  as  that  before ; — but  he  was 
convinced  of  this  man's  innocence  ;  there  was 
something  too,  so  peculiar  about  his  whole 
look,  bearing,  and  conduct,  that  he  could  not 
make  up  his  mind  to  have  any  share  in  send- 
ing him  to  be  executed  as  a  common  criminal. 
But  now  he  hears,  that  part  at  least,  perhaps, 
the  greater  part  of  the  offence  that  these  were 
'alleging  he  had  committed,  had  taken  place 
in  Galilee,  in  that  part  of  the  country  which 
was  not  under  his  jurisdiction,  but  belonged 


BEFORE  HEROD.  121 

to  that  of  Herod.  This  Herod,  the  King  of 
Galilee,  happened  at  this  very  time  to  be  in 
Jerusalem.  Pilate  will  send  the  case  to  him ; 
and  thus  get  the  responsibility  of  deciding  it 
shifted  from  his  own  shoulders,  by  laying  it 
upon  one  who  not  only  may  be  quite  willing 
to  assume  it,  but  may  regard  as  a  compliment 
the  reference  of  the  case  to  his  adjudication. 
There  was  a  misunderstanding  between  the 
two — the  Homan  Procurator  and  the  Galilean 
king — which  the  sending  of  Jesus  to  the 
latter  for  trial  might  serve  to  heal.  Pilate 
had  done  something  to  displease  Herod, — 
something,  in  all  likelihood,  in  the  very  way 
of  interfering  with  what  Herod  regarded  as 
his  rights,  and  the  rights  of  his  subjects. 
Some  Galileans  had  been  up  lately  at  Jeru- 
salem, offering  sacrifice  there.  There  had 
been  a  riot,  which  Pilate  had  promptly  and 
summarily  quelled  ;  but  in  doing  so  he  had 
mingled  the  blood  of  some  of  these  Galileans 
with  their  sacrifices — cut  them  down  without 
inquiring  whose  subjects  they  were,  or  what 
right  they  might  have  to  demand  a  trial  in 


122  CHRIST'S    APPEARANCE 

one  or  other  of  the  Herodian  courts.  For 
this,  or  such-like  imagined  interference  with 
his  jurisdiction,  Herod  had  taken  offence  at 
Pilate.  It  would  be,  then,  the  very  kind  of 
compliment  most  soothing  to  his  kingly  van- 
ity, this  recognition  of  his  jurisdiction,  by 
sending  to  him  so  notorious  a  person  as  Jesus 
was,  to  be  tried  at  his  bar.  Herod  recognised 
and  appreciated  the  compliment ;  and  what- 
ever else  Pilate  lost  by  the  line  of  conduct  he 
pursued  that  day,  he  at  least  gained  this, — 
he  got  that  quarrel  between  him  and  Herod 
healed. 

The  happy  thought  no  sooner  occurs  to 
Pilate  than  he  acts  upon  it.  And  now,  guard- 
ed by  some  Roman  soldiers,  accompanied  by 
the  whole  crowd  of  his  accusers,  Jesus  is  de- 
spatched to  Herod.  To  enter  into  the  scene 
that  follows,  we  must  go  back  a  little  upon 
this  Herod's  history.  How  John  the  Baptist 
and  he  became  first  acquainted,  we  are  not 
told.  A  part  of  the  territory  (Persea)  over 
which  Herod's  jurisdiction  extended,  ran 
down  along  the   eastern   shore  of  the  Dead 


BEFORE    HEROD.  jl23 

Sea,  and  it  is  probable  that  it  was  in  some  of 
the  circuits  that  he  made  of  this  district  that 
he  first  fell  in  with  the  Baptist,  engaged  in  his 
great  ministry  of  repentance.  Herod  was 
greatly  struck  alike  with  the  man  and  with 
his  teaching.  There  was  a  strange  fascination 
about  both  ^vhich  drew  the  attention  of  the 
King.  As  there  was  nothing  about  John's 
ministry  to  excite  or  gratify  either  the  intel- 
lect or  the  fancy, — no  miracles  wrought,  no 
new  doctrines  propounded,  no  vivid  picturing 
employed ;  as  all  was  so  purely  moral,  so 
plain,  so  pointed,  so  practical  in  his  teacliing, 
we  must  believe  that  what  at  first  drew  Herod 
to  John,  and  made  him  listen  with  such  pleas- 
ure, was  that  it  was  a  faithful  portraiture  of 
men  that  John  was  drawing,  an  honest  and 
fearless  exposure  of  their  sins  that  he  made. 
Herod  both  admired  and  approved  ;  but  the 
pleasure  that  he  had  in  observing  John,  and 
in  listening  to  his  instruction,  was  by  no 
means  a  pure  or  untroubled  one.  He  feared 
John,  w^e  are  told,  knowing  that  he  was  a  just 
man  and  a  holy.     This  fear  was  the  fruit  of 


124  CHRIST'S   APPEARANCE 

guilt.  He  knew  and  felt  what  a  different  man 
John  was  from  himself  The  very  presence 
of  the  Baptist  was  a  rebuke,  and  he  was  not 
yet  so  hardened  as  to  receive  that  rebuke 
without  alarm.  Nor  did  this  first  connexion 
of  the  King  with  the  Baptist  terminate  in  the 
mere  excitement  of  certain  emotions,  whether 
of  respect,  or  admiration,  or  fear.  Herod  did 
many  things,  we  are  told,  at  John's  bidding. 
I  imagine  that,  in  the  first  stage  of  their  in- 
tercourse, John  dealt  with  Herod  as  he  dealt 
with  the  Pharisees,  and  the  soldiers,  and  the 
publicans  ;  that  he  laid  his  hand  upon  those 
open  and  patent  offences  which  as  a  ruler,  and 
in  common  with  others  holding  that  office, 
Herod  notoriously  was  guilt}^  of.  The  King 
not  only  suffered  him  to  do  so,  but  even  went 
the  length  of  reforming  his  conduct  in  some 
respects,  in  obedience  to  the  Baptist's  instruc- 
tions. But  John  did  not  stop  there — did  not 
stop  where  Herod  would  have  liked  ;  but, 
stepping  boldly  into  the  inner  circle  of  his 
private  life,  and  laying  his  hand  upon  the 
stain  which  disfigured  it,  he  said  to  him,  "  It 


BEFORE    HEROD.  125 

is  not  lawful  for  thee  to  have  thy  brother's 
wife." 

In  all  likelihood  Herodias  was  not  with 
Herod  when  first  he  met  the  Baptist,  and 
heard  him  so  gladly,  and  did  many  things  at 
his  bidding.  This  meeting  may  have  hap- 
pened in  the  wilderness,  where  Herod  ranked 
but  as  one  of  John's  large  and  public  au- 
dience. But  the  King  invited  the  Baptist 
to  his  court,  and  it  was  there,  perhaps  in  pres- 
ence of  Herodias,  that  the  rebuke  of  that 
particular  transgression  was  given.  Herod's 
anger  was  kindled  at  what  appeared  an  im- 
pertinent and  officious  intermeddling  with  his 
private  conduct,  his  fomily  affairs.  And  there 
was  one  beside  him  who  resented  that  inter- 
meddling still  more  than  he,  and  was  at  pains 
to  excite  and  to  nurse  his  wrath.  Herodias 
would  have  made  short  work  of  it  with  this 
sharp  reprover ;  she  would  have  sealed  those 
lips  of  his  at  once  in  death,  so  that  she  should 
no  more  be  troubled  with  their  unwelcome 
utterances  ;  and  Herod  would  have  yielded  to 
her    desire,   notwithstanding   all   his    earlier 


126  CHRIST'S   APPEARANCE 

readiness  to  hear  and  to  obey,  notwithstund- 
ing  all  his  respect  and  regard  for  John ;  but 
he  feared  the  multitude,  and,  yielding  to  that 
fear,  he  made  a  compromise — he  cast  John 
into  prison,  and  kept  him  there  for  months. 
But  months  could  not  quench  the  thirst  for 
his  blood  that  had  been  stirred  in  the  heart 
of  that  second  Jezebel ;  still  she  was  asking 
for  the  head  of  the  Baptist,  but  Herod  would 
not  yield, — took  no  little  credit  to  himself, 
we  may  believe,  for  being  so  firm,  and,  for- 
getting that  it  was  the  fear  of  the  multitude 
that  overbalanced  the  influence  of  the  Queen, 
might  have  come  to  persuade  himself  that  he 
was  dealing  very  gently  and  tenderly  with  the 
Baptist.  But  the  Queen  knew  him  better 
than  he  knew  himself,  and  so  with  diabolic 
art  contrived  the  plot  that  was  to  bring  an- 
other and  still  weightier  fear,  to  overbalance 
in  its  turn  that  fear  of  the  multitude. 

All  went  as  she  desired.  The  evening  for 
the  royal  supper  came  ;  the  chief  men  of 
Galilee,  with  the  king  in  high  good-humor  at 
their  head,  sat  down  at  the  banqueting-table. 


BEFORE    HEROD.  127 

Salome  entered,  and  danced  before  them  ;  the 
guests,  heated  with  wine,  broke  out  into  rap- 
turous applause.  In  a  transport  of  delight, 
the  King  made  the  fatal  promise,  and  con- 
firmed it  with  an  oath,  that  he  would  give  her 
whatsoever  she  should  ask.  Salome  went 
out  to  consult  her  mother  as  to  what  her  re- 
quest should  be.  There  was  little  time  spent 
in  deliberation.  The  Queen's  reply  was  all 
ready,  for  she  had  conjectured  what  would 
occur,  and  so  Mark  tells,  Salome  came  in 
straightway  unto  the  King,  and  said.  Give 
me  here  John  the  Baptist's  head  upon  a 
charger.  The  King  was  taken  in  the  snare  ; 
no  time  for  thought  was  given,  no  way  of  es- 
cape left  open.  There  was  the  oath  which  he 
had  taken  ;  there  were  the  witnesses  of  that 
oath  around  the  board.  He  could  not  break 
his  oath  without  standing  dishonored  before 
those  witnesses.  The  fear  of  the  multitude 
is  overborne  by  a  still  higher  fear.  He  gives 
the  order,  and  the  deed  is  done.  Unhappy 
man  !  entangled,  betrayed  by  his  own  rash 
vow  ;  his  very  sense  of  honor  turned  into  the 


128  CHRIST'S    APPEARANCE 

instrument  that  makes  of  him  a  murderer ! 
Herod  was  exceeding  sorry ;  he  knew  well 
how  wrong  a  thing  it  was  that  he  was  doing ; 
it  was  with  hitter  self-reproach  that  the  order 
for  the  execution  was  given.  For  a  short 
time  there  were  the  stings  of  remorse,  hut 
these  soon  lost  their  power.  John  was  be- 
headed, and  no  manifestation  of  popular  dis- 
pleasure made.  John  was  beheaded  ;  Hero- 
dias  and  Salome  were  satisfied,  and  Herod 
himself  could  not  but  acknowledge  that  there 
was  a  kind  of  relief  in  knowing  that  he  should 
be  troubled  by  her  no  more  about  him.  Re- 
morse died  out,  but  a  strange  kind  of  super- 
stitious fear  haunted  Herod's  spirit.  Reports 
are  brought  to  him  of  another  strange  teacher 
who  has  arisen,  and  to  whom  all  men  are  now 
flocking,  as  they  had  flocked  to  the  Baptist  at 
the  first.  And  Herod  says,  "  John  have  I 
beheaded,  but  who  is  this  of  whom  I  hear 
such  things  ?" 

What  perplexed  him  was,  that  it  was  said 
by  some  that  John  was  risen  from  the  dead, 
by  some  that  Elias  had  appeared,  by  others 


BEFORE  HEROD.  129 

that  one  of  the  old  prophets  had  arisen. 
Herod  hesitated  for  a  time  which  of  these 
suppositions  he  should  adopt;  but  at  last  he 
adopted  one  of  them,  and  said  to  his  servants, 
"  This  is  John  the  Baptist ;  he  is  risen  from 
the  dead,  and  therefore  mighty  works  do  show 
forth  themselves  in  him."  He  desired  to  see 
him;  a  desire  in  which  there  mingled  at  the 
first  so  much  of  awe  and  dread,  that  he  rather 
shunned  than  courted  an  interview  ;  so  much 
so,  that  when  Christ  came  afterwards  into 
Galilee,  and  there  was  some  prospect  they 
might  meet,  he  had  in  a  very  artful  way,  by 
working  on  Christ's  fears,  persuaded  him  to 
withdraw  from  that  part  of  the  country.  He 
sent  some  Pharisees,  who  said  to  Jesus,  "  Get 
thee  out,  and  depart  hence,  for  Herod  will 
kill  thee."  Herod  never  could  have  really 
meditated  such  a  deed.  We  know  that  after- 
wards when  it  was  in  his  power,  he  dechned 
taking  any  part  in  the  condemnation  and  cru- 
cifixion of  Jesus.  It  was  but  a  cunning  de- 
vice intended  to  get  Herod  out  of  the  embar- 
rassments in  which   he  found   that   Christ's 


130  CHRIST'S    APPEARANCE 

residence  and  teaching  in  the  territory  within 
his  jurisdiction  might  involve  him.  And  so 
Jesus  seems  to  have  dealt  with  it,  when  he 
said  to  the  Pharisees^,  whom  he  at  once  re- 
cognized as  the  agents  of  the  King  :  "  Go," 
said  he,  "  and  tell  that  fox.  Behold,  I  cast  out 
devils,  and  I  do  cures  to-day  and  to-morrow, 
and  the  third  day  I  shall  be  perfected," — '  my 
times  and  places  for  Avorking  and  for  finishing 
my  work,  are  all  definitely  arranged,  and  that 
quite  independently  of  any  stratagem  of  this 
cunnino;  kinir.' 

At  last,  at  an  unexpected  time  and  place, 
and  in  an  unexpected  way,  Jesus  is  presented 
to  him ;  presented  by  Pilate  ;  presented  to  be 
tried ;  presented  as  a  criminal  at  the  bar, 
with  whom  he  may  use  the  greatest  freedom, 
as  Jesus  will  surely  be  anxious  to  say  and  do 
all  he  can  in  order  to  obtain  his  release. 
Ilerod,  therefore,  when  he  sees  Jesus  thus 
placed  before  him,  is  exceedingly  glad, — ho 
had  heard  so  much  about  him,  had  desired  so 
long  to  see  him.  But  now,  as  indicating  at 
once  the  state  of  mind  and  heart  into  which 


BEFORE  HEROD.  131 

worldliness  indulged,  and  levity  and  licen- 
tiousness, have  sunk  this  man,  and  as  supply- 
ing to  us  the  key  that  explains  our  Lord's 
singular  conduct  to  him,  let  us  particularly 
notice,  that  in  the  gladness  which  Herod  feels 
in  having  the  desire  to  see  Christ  thus  grati- 
fied, there  mingles  no  wish  to  be  instructed, 
no  alarm  of  a  guilty  conscience,  no  dread  of 
meeting  another  Baptist  to  rebuke  him  for  his 
iniquities.  He  has  got  over  whatever  com- 
punction he  may  at  one  time  have  felt.  He 
has  quenched  those  risings  of  remorse  within 
his  heart.  He  has  come  to  be  once  more  on 
such  good  terms  with  himself;  so  much  at 
ease,  that  when  he  looks  at  Jesus,  it  is  with 
no  disturbing  remembrances  of  that  bloody 
head  once  brought  to  him  upon  the  charger, — 
no  shrinking  dread  that  he  may  see  again  the 
Baptist's  form,  and  hear  again  the  Baptist's 
voice.  It  is  with  an  eager,  idle,  prurient 
curiosity — having  a  tinge,  perhaps,  of  super- 
stitious wonder  in  it,  that  he  looks  upon  Je- 
sus, and  proceeds  to  put  his  questions  to  him. 
As  compared  with  John,  this  new  teacher  had 


132  CHRIST'S    APPEARANCE 

been  distinguished  by  the  miracles  which  he 
had  wrought.  And  if  he  wrought  miracles 
to  sa.ve  others,  surely  he  will  work  some  to 
save  himself.  Herod  tries  in  every  way  he 
can  think  of,  to  induce  him  to  work  some 
wonder  in  his  presence.  How^  does  Jesus  act 
when  addressed  and  treated  thus  by  such  a 
man  ?  Shall  it  be  as  if  the  Baptist  had  in- 
deed risen  from  the  dead  ?  Will  Jesus  seize 
upon  the  opportunity  now  given,  to  take  up, 
reiterate,  and  redouble  upon  the  profligate 
prince  the  rebuke  of  his  great  forerunner? 
Shall  Herod  hear  it  said  to  him  now,  in  tones 
more  piercing  than  ever  John  employed,  It 
was  not  lawful  for  thee  to  take  the  Baptist's 
life  ?  Not  thus  does  Jesus  act.  Herod  puts 
question  after  question  to  him.  Jesus  looks 
at  the  questioner,  but  opens  not  his  lips. 
Herod  asks  and  asks  again,  that  some  sign 
may  be  shown  by  Jesus,  some  token  of  his 
alleged  power  exhibited.  Jesus  never  lifts  a 
finger,  nor  makes  a  single  movement,  in  com- 
pliance. Herod  is  the  only  one  of  all  his 
judges  whom  Jesus  deals  with  in  this  way, — 


BEFORE    HEROD.  133 

the  only  one  of  them  before  whom,  however 
spoken  to,  he  preserves  a  continuous  and  un- 
broken silence.  It  does  not  appear  that,  from 
the  time  when  he  was  presented  to  Herod,  to 
the  time  when  he  was  sent  away  from  him,  a 
single  word  ever  passed  the  Saviour's  lips. 

That  deep  and  death-like  silence,  the 
silence  of  those  lips  which  opened  with  such 
pliant  readiness  when  any  word  of  gentle 
entreaty  or  hopeful  warning  was  to  be  spoken, 
how  shall  we  interpret  it  ?  Was  it  indigna- 
tion that  sealed  those  lips?  Would  Christ 
hold  no  intercourse  with  the  man  who  had 
dipped  his  hands  in  such  blood  as  that  of  the 
Baptist  ?  Did  he  mean  to  mark  off  Herod 
as  the  one  and  only  man  so  deeply  stained 
with  guilt  that  he  will  not  stoop  to  exchange 
with  him  a  single  word  ?  It  had  been  human 
this,  but  not  divine ;  and  it  is  a  divine  meaning 
that  we  must  look  for  in  this  dread  and  aw- 
ful silence.  There  lived  not,  there  breathed 
not  upon  the  earth  the  man,  however 
steeped  in  guilt,  from  whom  that  loving  Sav- 
iour would  have   turned  away,  had  but  the 


134  CHRIST'S    APPEARANCE 

slightest  sign  of  penitence  been  shown,  the 
slightest  symptom  of  a  readiness  to  listen  and 
he  saved.  It  was  no  bygone  act  of  Herod's 
life  that  drew  down  upon  him  the  doom  of 
that  silence — though  doom  it  little  seemed  to 
him  to  be  ;  it  was  the  temper  and  the  spirit 
of  the  man  as  he  stood  there  before  the  Lord, 
after  all  that  he  had  passed  through  -,  it  was 
that  which  did  it.  Why,  the  very  sight  of 
Jesus,  connected,  as  he  knew  or  fancied  him, 
in  some  mysterious  w^ay  with  John,  should 
have  been  to  Herod  as  though  one  risen  from 
the  dead  had  actually  appeared  in  his  pres- 
ence. It  should  have  been  he,  not  Jesus, 
that  should  have  been  speechless  when  they 
met;  or,  if  he  spake  at  all,  it  should  have 
been  to  ask  whether,  in  that  world  of  spirits 
from  which  Christ  came,  there  was  mercy  for 
a  sinner  such  as  he.  But,  instead  of  this, 
instead  of  anything  like  this,  instead  of  deep 
or  earnest  or  anxious  feeling  of  any  kind, 
there  is  nothing  but  a  vain-glorious  wish  to 
have  his  kingly  pride  gratified  by  some  talk 
with  this  strange  man,  with  whose  name  and 


BEFORE    HEROD.  135 

fame  all  the  country  has  been  ringing,  the 
babblings  of  an  empty  curiosity,  the  thirst  for 
some  showy  exhibition  of  knowledge  or  of 
power.  Let  not  that  man  think  that  he  shall 
hear  anything  of  the  Lord.  Christ  could  have 
spoken  such  a  word  as  Herod  never  would 
have  liked  to  hear  again ;  he  could  have 
wrought  such  a  miracle  as  would  have  turned 
the  curiosity  of  the  king  into  terror,  his  pride 
into  abasement.  But  he  is  now  to  reap  the 
fruit  of  his  own  doings,  and  that  fruit  is  even 
this,  that  he  is  left  unspoken  to  by  the  Lord 
from  heaven.  This  silence,  had  he  but  inter- 
preted it  aright,  was  perhaps  the  very  instru- 
ment most  fitted  to  speak  home  to  his  con- 
science and  his  heart.  But  he  did  not 
understand  it,  did  not  enter  into  the  reason 
of  it,  never  thought  of  his  ow^n  past  con- 
duct, his  own  present  character,  as  the  cause 
of  it ;  it  stirred  him  to  no  inquiry,  it 
awakened  in  him  no  remorse.  The  only 
feeling  that  it  appears  to  have  produced 
was  irritation ;  the  irritation  of  mortified 
vanity.     Greatly  galled,  yet  in  no  way  soft- 


136  CHEIST'S    APPEARANCE 

ened,  when  he  could  make  nothing  of  this 
mysterious  man  who  mantled  himself  in  such 
obstinate  silence,  he  and  his  men  of  war  found 
nothing  else  to  do  than  to  set  Christ  at 
naught,  and  mock  him,  and  array  him  in  a 
white  robe,  and  send  him  back  to  Pilate. 

A  wonderful  instance  this  of  the  onward, 
downward  course  of  crime,  particularly  of  that 
peculiar  course  of  crime,  levity,  and  licen- 
tiousness, which  Herod  had  pursued  ;  an  in- 
stance how  speedily  and  how  thoroughly  a 
human  heart  may  harden  itself  against  re- 
proof, quench  its  convictions,  get  over  its 
fears,  and  bring  down  upon  itself  that  doom, 
than  which  there  is  none  more  awful, — 
Ephraim  is  joined  to  his  idols  ;  let  him  alone. 
To  be  left  utterly  and  absolutely  alone  ;  to 
have  all  the  voices  that  speak  to  us  of  God 
and  duty,  the  voice  of  conscience  from  within, 
the  voice  of  providence  from  without,  the 
voice  which  comes  from  the  lips  of  Jesus, — 
to  have  all  these  voices  hushed,  hushed  into 
an  unbroken,  perhaps  eternal  stillness  ;  can 
one  conceive  any  condition  of  a  human  spirit 


BEFORE    HEROD.  137 

sadder  or  more  awful?  Yet  this  is  the  very 
condition  to  Avhich  the  abuse  of  opportunity, 
the  indulgence  of  passion,  the  drowning  of 
the  voices  when  they  do  speak  to  us,  is  natu- 
rally and  continually  tending. 

My  young  friends  let  me  entreat  you  es- 
pecially to  take  a  double  warning  from  such 
a  case  as  this  : — 1st.  Beware  how  you  deal 
with  your  first  religious  convictions  ;  tremble 
for  yourselves  if  you  find  them  dying  by  a 
slow  death,  as  the  withering,  hardening  spirit 
of  worldliuess  creeps  in  upon  your  soul,  or 
perishing  suddenly  amid  the  consuming  fires 
of  some  burning  passion.  They  tell  us  that 
there  is  no  ice  so  close  and  hard  as  that 
which  forms  upon  the  surface  which  once  was 
thawed ;  and  there  is  no  hardness  of  the 
human  spirit  so  great  as  that  which  forms 
over  hearts  that  once  had  melted.  And,  2d, 
Beware  of  hot  fits  of  enthusiasm,  in  which 
you  go  farther  in  profession  than  you  are 
prepared  to  go  in  steady  and  sustained  prac- 
tice. Herod  went  too  far  at  first,  and  got 
himself  involved  among   obligations   and  re- 


138  CHRIST    BEFORE    HEROD. 

straints  from  which,  when  the  hour  of  temp- 
tation came,  he  flung  himself  free  by  an  effort 
which  damaged  his  moral  and  spiritual  nature 
more  than  it  had  been  ever  damaged  before  ; 
his  revulsions  from  religion  all  the  greater  on 
account  of  the  temporary  and  partial,  but 
hollow  and  merely  emotional  entertainment 
that  he  had  given  to  its  claims.  What  you 
do,  do  it  with  all  your  heart ;  for  it  is  good  to 
be  zealously  affected  in  a  good  thing ;  but  do 
it  intelligently,  calmly,  deliberately,  as  those 
who  know  and  feel  that  it  is  the  greatest  of 
all  transactions  that  you  engage  in,  when  it 
is  with  God  and  for  your  soul's  eternal  wel- 
fare that  you  transact. 


VI. 

"  This  child,"  said  good  old  Simeon,  as  he 
took  up  the  infant  Jesus  into  his  arms  to 
bless  him — "  this  child  is  set  for  the  fall  and 
rising  again  of  many  in  Israel;  and  for  a 
sign  that  shall  be  spoken  against;  that  the 
thoughts  of  many  hearts  may  be  revealed." 
Never  were  those  words  more  strikingly  ful- 
filled than  in  these  closing  scenes  of  the 
Saviour's  life  which  we  are  now  engaged  in 
tracing.  Then  many  fell, — those  forsaking, 
despairing  discijjles  of  Jesus, — but  fell  to  rise 
again ;  then  was  that  sign  set  up,  against 
which  so  many  shafts  of  so  many  kinds  were 
launched ;    and  then  were   the   thoughts  of 

«5  Luke  xxiii.  13-16 ;  Matthew  xxvii.  15-23;  Luke  xxiiL  20-23 ; 
MaltLew  xxvii.  26-30  ;  Jolia  xix.  1-16. 


140  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

many  hearts  revealed — among  others  those 
of  Judas,  and  Peter,  and  Caiaphas,  and 
Herod,  and  Pilate — revealed  by  the  very 
closeness  of  their  contact  with  Christ,  by  the 
peculiarity  of  those  relationships  to  him  into 
which  they  were  then  thrown.  Last  Sunday 
our  attention  was  concentrated  upon  Herod  ; 
to-day  let  us  fix  our  eyes  on  Pilate,  and, 
taking  him  up  at  that  stage  where  we  left 
him,  let  us  try  to  understand  and  to  follow 
the  working  of  his  thoughts  and  feelings 
during  those  two  hours  of  their  earthly  lives 
in  which  he  and  Jesus  had  to  do  with  one 
another — he  in  the  character  of  the  judge, 
Jesus  in  the  character  of  one  accused  and 
condemned  by  the  Sanhedrim. 

You  will  remember  that  when  first  he 
heard  among  the  other  accusations  that  the 
High  Priests  lodged  against  him,  that  Jesus 
had  said  that  he  himself  was  Christ  a  King, — 
struck  at  once  with  the  singularity  of  the  pre- 
tension, and  with  the  appearance  of  the  man 
who  made  it,  Pilate  called  on  Christ  to  follow 
him  into  the  inner  hall  of  his  residence ;  that 


BEFORE    PILATE.  141 

there,  when  alone  with  hiiii,  omitting  all  refer- 
ence to  any  other  charge,  he  asked  him  par- 
ticularly about  this  one ;  that  Christ  fully 
satisfied  him  as  to  there  being  nothing  politi- 
cally dangerous  or  offensive  in  the  claim  to 
kingship  he  had  put  forth  ;  that,  bringing 
Christ  out  along  with  him  to  the  Jews,  he 
said  at  once  and  decidedly,  "  I  find  no  fault 
in  this  man ;"  and  that  then,  taking  advan- 
tage of  a  reference  to  Galilee,  he  had  sent 
Jesus  ofi*  to  Herod,  to  see  what  that  Galilean 
king  and  judge  might  think  and  do.  In  this 
way  he  hoped  to  be  relieved  from  the  painful 
and  embarrassing  position  in  which  he  felt 
himself  to  be  placed. 

He  was  disappointed  in  this  hope.  Jesus 
was  sent  back  to  him  by  Herod  ;  sent  back 
without  any  judgment  having  been  pro- 
nounced ;  sent  back  in  such  a  way  as  to  in- 
dicate that  Herod  as  well  as  he  made  light  of 
this  poor  Galilean's  pretension  to  be  a  king, — • 
thought  it,  in  fact,  more  a  matter  for  mockery 
and  ridicule  than  for  serious  judicial  enter- 
tainment.    Although  a  considerable  body  of 


142  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

the  High  Priests  and  of  the  people  had  ac- 
companied Jesus  to  and  from  the  bar  of 
Herod,  yet  in  that  interval  there  had  been  to 
some  extent  a  scattering  of  the  crowd.  Pilate 
called,  therefore,  now  afresh  together  the 
Chief  Priests,  and  the  rulers,  and  the  people 
— the  latter  particularly  mentioned,  as  Pilate 
had  now  begun  to  think  that  his  best  chance 
of  gaining  the  end  upon  which  his  heart  was 
set, —  the  deliverance  of  Christ  out  of  the 
hands  of  his  enemies, — would  be  by  appeal- 
ing, over  the  heads  of  their  rulers,  to  the  hu- 
manity of  the  common  people.  When  all, 
then,  were  again  assembled,  he  made  a  short 
speech  to  them,  reiterating  his  own  conviction 
of  Christ's  innocence,  confirming  it  by  the 
testimony  of  Herod,  and  closing  by  a  pro- 
posal that  he  hoped  would  be  at  once  accept- 
ed,— I  will  therefore  chastise  him.  and  release 
him.  But  why,  if  he  were  innocent,  chastise 
him  at  all  ?  Why  not  at  once  acquit  the  cul- 
prit, and  send  him  away  absolved  from  the 
bar  of  Roman  judgment  ?  It  was  a  weak 
and  unworthy  concession,  the  first  faltering 


BEFORE    PILATE.  143 

of  Pilate  s  footstep.  He  cannot  but  say  that 
he  has  found  nothing  worthy  of  death  in  this 
man ;  he  is  himself  thoroughly  satisfied  that 
there  is  nothing  worthy  of  any  punishment 
in  him ;  but  it  will  please  his  accusers,  it  will 
conciliate  the  people,  it  may  open  the  way  to 
their  readier  acquiescence  in  his  after  dis- 
missal, to  inflict  some  punishment  upon  him ; 
a  proposal  not  dictated  by  any  spirit  of 
cruelty,  springing  rather  from  the  wish  to 
protect  Jesus  from  the  greater  penalty,  by 
inflicting  on  him  the  less ;  yet  one  that 
weakened  his  position,  that  made  those 
sharp-sighted  Jews  at  once  perceive  that  he 
could  be  moved,  that  he  was  not  ready  to 
take  up  and  stand  firmly  and  fixedly  upon 
the  ground  of  Christ's  innocence.  In  defer- 
ence to  them,  he  has  gone  so  far  against  his 
own  convictions  ;  he  may  go  farther.  He 
has  yielded  the  inch,  they  may  force  him  to 
yield  the  ell.  The  proposal,  therefore,  of 
chastising  Jesus,  and  letting  him  go,  is  re- 
jected, and  rejected  so  as  to  throw  Pilate 
back  upon  some  other,  some  new  device. 


144        Christ's  second  appearance 

He  recollected  that  at  this  time  of  the 
Passover  it  was  a  customary  thing,  in  com- 
pliment to  the  great  assembly  of  the  Jews 
in  their  metropolis,  for  the  Procurator  to  ar- 
rest in  a  single  instance  the  ordinary  course 
of  justice,  and  to  release  whatever  prisoner 
the  people  might  ask  to  be  given  up.  He 
recollected  at  the  same  time  that  there  was 
a  notable  prisoner,  who  then  lay  bound  at 
Jerusalem,  one  Barabbas,  who  for  sedition 
and  murder  had  been  cast  into  prison ;  and 
the  idea  occurred  to  Pilate  that  if,  instead 
either  of  asking  them  broadly  and  generally 
who  it  Avas  that  they  wished  him  to  release, 
or  whether  they  would  let  him  choose  for 
them  and  release  Jesus, — if  he  narrowed  in 
this  instance  the  choice,  and  presented  to 
them  the  alternative  of  taking  Barabbas  or 
Jesus,  they  could  scarcely  fail  to  choose  the 
latter.  To  give  the  greater  effect  to  this 
proposition,  Pilate  ascended  the  movable  ros- 
trum or  judgment-seat,  which  stood  upon  the 
tessalated  pavement  that  ran  before  the  ves- 
tibule of  the  Palace,  and  addressing  himself 


BEFORE    PILATE.  1'15 

to  the  multitude,  said  to  them,  "  Whom  will 
ye  that  I  release  unto  you  ?  Barabbas,  or 
Jesus  who  is  called  Christ  ?" 

While  w\aiting  their  answer,  a  message  was 
brought  to  him,  the  messenger  having  been 
instructed  to  deliver  it  immediately,  wherever 
he  was,  and  however  he  might  be  engaged. 
It  came  from  his  wife  ;  was  distinct  and  some-  ./ 
what  authoritative, — "  Have  thou  nothing  to 
do  with  that  just  man,  for  I  haA^e  suffered 
many  things  this  day  in  a  dream  because  of 
him."  Pilate's  wife  was  not  a  Jew,  nor  did 
she  mix  much  with  the  common  people  of  the 
land.  That  she  should  have  heard  so  much 
of  Jesus,  have  learned  to  think  and  speak  of 
him  as  that  just  man,  should  have  been  so 
much  concerned  when  she  heard  that  her  hus- 
band had  been  asked  to  try  him,  that  she  took 
this  uncommon  step  of  sending  a  warning  to 
him  on  the  judgment-seat, — may  be  taken  as 
a  proof  how  wide-spread  and  how  deep  the 
impression  was  that  Christ  had  made. 

The   time    occupied    by  the   hearing   and 
thinking  about  this  message, — whose  warning 


146  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

knell  rung  in  strange  harmony  with  the  alarm 
that  was  already  pealing  in  Pilate's  spirit, — • 
gave  to  the  Chief  Priests  and  the  rulers  the 
opportunity  they  were  so  quick  to  seize,  to 
prompt  the  crowd  as  to  the  answer  they  were 
to  give  to  the  proposal  which  Pilate  had  sub- 
mitted. We  do  not  know  what  kind  of  stimu- 
lants were  employed  upon  this  occasion  ;  but 
we  all  do  know  what  a  flexible,  impressible, 
excitable  a  thing  a  city  mob  is,  when  com- 
posed, as  this  one  mainly  was,  of  the  lowest 
of  the  people  ;  and  we  can  at  least  easily 
conjecture  what  the  firebrands  were  which 
the  expert  hands  of  the  priesthood  threw  in 
among  that  mob,  inflaming  its  passions  to  the 
highest  pitch,  and  giving  the  burning  mass 
into  their  hands,  to  be  directed  as  they  de- 
sired. Recovered  a  little  from  the  disturb- 
ance which  his  wife's  message  cost  him,  Pilate 
turns  again  to  the  people,  and  says  to  them, 
"  Which  of  the  two,  then,  will  ye  that  I  re- 
lease unto  you  ?"  They  say,  "  Barabbas." 
Surprised  and  annoyed  at  the  reply,  almost 
willino;  to  believe   there  has  been  some  mis« 


BEFORE    FILATE.  147 

take,  lie  puts  it  to  them  in  another  form  : 
"  Will  ye  that  I  release  nnto  3'ou  the  King  of 
the  Jews  ?"  using  the  epithet,  in  the  belief 
that  they,  as  well  as  he,  will  look  upon  its 
claimant  more  as  an  object  of  pity  than  of 
condemnation.  But  now  they  leave  him  in 
no  doubt  as  to  what  their  will  and  pleasure 
is  :  "  Away  w^ith  this  man,"  they  all  cry  out 
at  once,  "  and  release  unto  us  Barabbas  !" 
"  What  shall  I  then  do  with  Jesu»,  which  is 
called  Christ  ?"  This  weak  and  almost  pitiful 
asking  of  them  what  it  was  that  he  should 
do,  ends,  as  all  such  yielding  to  popular  pre- 
judices, cringing  to  popular  passions,  ever 
does  ;  it  makes  the  multitude  more  confident, 
more  imperious.  The  Governor  has  put  him- 
self into  their  hands,  and  they  will  make  him 
do  their  will.  "  What  shall  I  do,  then,  with 
Jesus  ?"  Let  him  be  crucified,  they  say. 
Crucified  !  It  is  the  first  time  the  word  has 
been  named  in  Pilate's  hearing,  the  first  time 
they  tell  him  articulately  what  it  is  they  de- 
sire to  have  done  with  Jesus.  Crucify  him  ! 
— give  up  to  that  worst  and  most  ignominious 


148  CHRIST'S   SECOND    APPEARANCE 

of  all  deaths  this  meek  and  gentle  man,  who 
he  is  sure  has  done  no  wrong  ;  w^hom  he  sees 
well  enough  that  the  Chief  Priests  seek  to  get 
rid  of  from  some  religious  antipathy  that  they 
have  taken  against  him  : — can  the  people 
mean  it  ?  He  had  fancied,  whatever  the 
Chief  Priests  thought,  that  they  had  a  differ- 
ent feeling  towards  him.  '^  Why,"  in  his  sur- 
prise, he  says  to  them,  "  what  evil  hath  he 
done  ?"  But  this  now  excited  and  uproarious 
crowd  is  far  past  the  point  of  answering  or 
arguing  with  the  Governor.  Its  one  and  only 
cry  is,  "  Let  him  be  crucified  !"  Twice  Pilate 
asks  them  to  tell  him  what  crime  he  had  com- 
mitted, that  they  should  doom  him  to  a  felon's 
death.  He  gets  but  that  cry  repeated,  with 
louder,  angrier  voice.  Yet  a  third  time, — 
clinging  to  the  hope  that  he  may  still  suc- 
ceed in  extricating  Jesus  from  their  grasp, 
without  putting  himself  entirely  wrong  with 
them, — he  puts  the  query, — "  Why,  what  evil 
hath  he  done  ?"  and  gathering  up  a  little 
strength,  as  if  he  were  determined  to  take 
his  own  way,  and  act  upon  the  suggestion 


BEFORE    PILATE.  149 

that  he  had  thrown  out  a  few  moments  before, 
he  acids,  "  I  have  found  no  cause  of  death  in 
him.  I  will  therefore  chastise  him,  and  let 
him  go."  The  very  mention  of  letting  him 
go  stirs  the  crowd  to  a  tenfold  frenzy,  and 
now  the  voices  of  the  Chief  Priests  them- 
selves are  heard  swelling  and  intensifying  the 
cry,  "  Crucify  him  !  crucify  him  !" 

Before  a  storm  like  this  who  can  stand  ? 
He  has  done — so  Pilate  thinks — the  most  he 
can.  If  he  go  further,  he  will  raise  another 
city  tumult  which  it  will  cost  many  lives  to 
quell,  and  the  quelling  of  which  by  force  may 
expose  him  to  the  very  same  charges  of 
tyranny  and  cruelty  which,  upon  more  than 
one  occasion  of  the  kind  before,  had  actually 
been  transmitted  to  Rome  against  him,  and 
drawn  down  upon  him  the  rebuke  and  dis- 
pleasure of  the  Emperor.  The  yielding  is  but 
the  sacrifice  of  a  single  life,  which  may  be 
made  without  involving  the  Governor  in  any 
danger.  But  the  resisting ;  who  can  tell  in 
•what  that  miglit  land?  Still,  however,  he  is 
not  at  ease.     He   himself  scarce  knows  the 


ir)0  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

reason  wh}  ;  but  somehow  he  never  saw  the 
man  whose  blood  he  would  like  so  ill  to  have 
resting  upon  him  as  the  blood  of  Jesus.  The 
private  interview  they  had  together  in  the 
Hall  had  raised  some  stran2:e  misarivings  in 
Pilate's  heart.  What  is  it  about  this  man 
that  has  given  him  so  strong  a  hold  upon 
Pilate,  and  makes  him  struggle  so  hard  to  get 
him  released  ?  Pilate  himself  could  not  have 
told ;  but  even  now,  though  he  has  at  last 
resolved  to  give  him  up,  he  will  not,  cannot 
do  it  without  trying  in  some  way  to  throw  off 
his  shoulders  the  responsibility  of  his  death. 
"  When  Pilate  saw  that  he  could  prevail 
nothing,  but  rather  that  a  tumult  was  made, 
he  took  water  and  Avashed  his  hands  before 
the  multitude,  saying,  '  I  am  innocent  of  the 
blood  of  this  just  person ;  see  ye  to  it,'  Then 
answered  all  the  people  and  said,  '  His  blood 
be  on  us,  and  on  our  children.'  And  he  de- 
livered Jesus  to  their  will." 

Now,  let  us  pause  a  moment  here  in  the 
narrative  to  mark  the  inner  workings  of  con- 
science and  of  humanity  in  the  heart  of  Pilate. 


BEFORE    PILATE.  151 

It  seemed  an  ingenious  device  to  give  the 
people  their  choice.  It  was  resorted  to  from  ^ 
a  desire  on  his  part  to  rescue  Jesus.  It  would 
gain,  as  it  first  seemed  to  him,  a  double  ob- 
ject,— it  would  prevent  the  Jews  from  saying 
that  he  had  screened  a  seditious  man,  and  yet 
it  would  rescue  an  innocent  one  from  death. 
But  to  what  did  it  amount  ?  It  proceeded  on 
the  assumption  that  Christ  was  guilty ;  it 
asked  that  as  one  righteously  condemned,  he 
might  by  an  act  of  grace  be  released.  There  ^ 
lay  one  fatal  flaw  in  the  proposition.  But, 
still  worse,  it  put  the  matter  out  of  Pilate's 
hands  into  those  of  the  people.  It  was  a 
virtual  renunciation,  on  Pilate's  part,  of  the 
rights  and  prerogatives  of  the  judge.  And 
by  thus  denuding  himself  of  his  own  proper 
official  position,  Pilate  put  himself  at  the 
mercy  of  a  fickle  and  infuriated  populace,  and 
gave  them  that  hold  and  power  over  him 
which  they  so  mercilessly  employed. 

This  crying  out — "  Crucify,  crucify  him  !" 
as  contrasted  with  the  hosannas  that  a  few 
days  before  had  greeted  Christ's  entrance  into 


152  CHRIST'S    SECOND    ArPEARANCE 

Jerusalem,  has  been  often  quoted  to  prov^e 
how  rapid  the  changes  in  popular  sentiment 
sometimes  are,  how  little  a  multitude  can  be 
trusted.  But  was  it  the  same  crowd  which 
raised  the  hosannas  of  the  one  day,  that  ut- 
tered the  "  Crucify  him,  crucify  him  !"  of  the 
other?  I  rather  think  that  had  .we  been 
present  upon  both  occasions,  and  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem, 
we  should  have  seen  that  the  two  crowds 
were  differently  constituted ;  and  that  how- 
ever true  it  may  be  that  tides  of  public  feel- 
ing often  take  suddenly  opposite  directions, 
this  can  scarcely  be  quoted  as  an  instance 
exactly  in  point. 

But  very  curious  is  it  to  mark  the  expe- 
dient to  which  Pilate  had  recourse,  in  that 
public  washing  of  his  hands.  He  delivers 
Jesus  up  to  be  crucified.  Therein  lay  his 
guilt;  he  might,  and  should  have  refused  to 
become  a  party  to  his  crucifixion.  Believing 
Jesus  to  be  innocent,  to  give  him  up  to  death 
was  to  take  a  large  share  of  the  criminality 
upon  himself.     And  yet  he  thinks  that  when 


BEFORE    PILATE.  .  153 

he  gets  the  Jews  to  take  it  upon  them  that 
he  has  relieved  himself,  if  not  entirely,  yet  in 
great  measure,  of  the  responsibility.  He  re- 
gards himself  as  one  coerced  by  others  ;  and 
when  these  others  are  quite  W'illing  to  take  on 
themselves  the  entire  weight  of  the  deed,  he 
imagines  that  this  will  go  a  great  length  in 
clearing  him.  And  if  ever,  placed  under 
strong  compulsion  from  without,  urged  on  to 
a  certain  course  of  conduct  which  in  our  con- 
science we  disapprove,  we  yield,  and  in  yield- 
ing take  comfort  to  ourselves  from  others  say- 
ing that  they  are  quite  ready  to  incur  the 
whole  responsibility  of  the  affair,  then  let  us 
remember  that  we  are  acting  over  again  the 
part  of  Pilate ;  and  that  just  as  little  as  that 
outward  washing  of  his  hands  did  anything 
to  clear  him  of  the  stain  he  was  contracting, 
so  little  can  we  hope  that  the  guilt  contracted 
by  our  being  a  consenting  and  co-operating 
party  in  any  deed  of  injustice  or  dishonor, 
may  thus  be  mitigated  or  wiped  away. 

Pilate  hao  given  up  Jesus  to  the  will  of 
the  multitude ;   given  him  up  to  be  crucified. 


154  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

The  judge's  work  is  clone;  there  remains  only 
the  work  of  the  executioner.  Over  that  it  is 
no  part  of  the  Procurator's  office  to  preside. 
Why,  then,  does  Pilate  not  withdraw  ?  We 
might  have  thought  that,  wearied  with  his 
conflict  with  the  rabble,  and  oppressed  with 
painful  feelings  as  to  its  issue,  he  would  have 
been  only  too  glad  to  retire — but  he  cannot : 
a  singular  fascination  still  binds  him  to  the 
spot, — perhaps  the  lingering  hope  that  he 
may  yet  succeed  in  rescuing  the  victim  from 
his  bloodthirsty  enemies.  He  hands  Christ 
over  to  his  soldiers,  to  have  that  scourging 
inflicted  which  was  the  ordinary  precursor 
and  preliminary  to  crucifixion.  It  might  not 
be  difficult  from  the  narratives  of  eye-wit- 
nesses to  give  you  some  idea  of  what  a  mili- 
tary scourging  was,  what  kind  of  instrument 
they  used  in  it,  what  kind  of  wounds  that 
instrument  made,  what  terrible  torture  was 
inflicted,  to  what  lengths  that  torture  was 
often  carried  ;  but  we  would  rather  have  a 
veil  drawn  over  the  purely  physical  sufferings 
of  our  Saviour,  than  have  them  pressed  pro- 


BEFORE    PILATE.  155 

minently  upon  our  eye.  We  recoil  from  the 
attempts  so  often  made  to  excite  a  sympa- 
thetic horror  by  vivid  details  of  our  Lord's 
bodily  sufferings.  We  feel  as  if  it  were  de- 
grading him  to  present  him  in  that  character, 
in  which  so  many,  equal  nay  superior  in  their 
claims  upon  our  sympathy,  might  be  put  be- 
side him. 

But  the  scourging  did  not  satisfy  the  rude 
and  brutal  soldiers  who  had  got  Christ  into 
their  hands.  As  Romans,  these  men  knew 
little,  cared  little  about  any  kingship  that 
Christ  might  claim.  With  them  it  could  not 
be,  as  with  the  Jews,  a  subject  of  religious 
hate  or  scorn.  It  was  a  topic  alone  of  ribald 
mirth,  of  Gentile  mockery.  This  Roman  co- 
hort takes  tlie  hint  that  Herod's  men  of  war 
had  given  them ;  who  had  thrown  a  white 
robe  over  Jesus,  clothing  him  with  something 
like  the  garment  that  their  own  kings  wore, 
that  they  might  set  at  naught  his  vain  pre- 
tensions to  be  a  king.  And  now,  when  the 
scourging  is  over,  these  Roman  soldiers  will 
outdo  their  Jewish  comrades  ;  they  will  make 


156  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

a  more  perfect  pantpmime  of  this  poor  Gali- 
lean's royalty.  They  take  some  old  military 
cloak,  of  the  same  color  with  the  robes  of 
their  emperors;  they  throw  it  over  his  bloody 
shoulders ;  they  plait  a  crown  of  thorns,  and 
put  it  on  his  head  ;  they  thrust  a  reed  as  a 
mock  sceptre,  into  his  right  hand  ;  and  then, 
when  they  have  got  him  robed,  and  crowned, 
and  sceptred  thus,  they  bow  the  knee,  and 
hail  him  as  a  king.  But  they  tire  even  of 
that  mock  homage ;  the  demon  spirit  that  is 
in  them  inspires  the  merriment  with  a  savage 
cruelty ;  and  so,  as  if  ashamed  even  of  that 
kind  of  homage  they  had  rendered,  they 
snatch  impatiently  the  reed  out  of  his  hand, 
and  smite  with  it  the  crown  of  thorns,  and 
drive  it  down  upon  his  pierced  and  bleeding- 
brow,  and  spit  upon  him,  and  smite  him  with 
their  hands. 

All  this  is  done  in  an  inner  court  or  guard- 
room, out  of  sight  of  the  crowd  that  is  still 
waiting  without.  Pilate  sees  it  all ;  makes 
no  attempt  to  mitigate  the  suffering  or  the 
mockery ;  is  absorbed  in  wonder  as  he  gazes 


BEFORE    PILATE.  157 

upon  Jesus — such  a  picture  of  silent,  gentle, 
ineek,  unmurmuring,  uncompla'.ning  patience  ! 
— standing  there,  and  taking  all  that  treat- 
ment as  though  no  strange  thing  were  hap- 
pening, as  if  he  had  expected  all,  were 
prepared  for  all,  found  no  difficulty  in  sub- 
mitting to  all.  There  is  no  weakness  in 
that  patience  ;  but  a  strength,  a  power,  a 
dignity.  The  sight  moves  Pilate's  heart;  it 
would  move  any  heart,  he  thinks  ;  may  it  not 
move  even  the  hearts  of  those  people  with- 
out ?  may  it  not  satisfy  their  thirst  for  ven- 
geance to  see  the  suffering  Jesus  reduced  to 
such  a  pitiable  plight  as  this  ?  He  will  try 
at  least  what  the  sight  can  do  in  the  way  of 
stirring  such  sympathy.  He  goes  forth,  with 
Jesus  following,  and  says  to  the  multitude, 
"Behold,  I  bring  him  forth  to  you,  that  ye 
may  know  that  I  find  no  fault  in  him ;"  then, 
turning  and  pointing  to  Jesus,  as  he  stood 
wearing  still  the  purple  robe  and  the  crown 
of  thorns,  bearing  on  his  face  and  person  the 
marks  of  all  the  sufferings  and  indignities  of 
the  guardhouse,   Pilate   says,    "Behold    the 


158  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

man !" — behold  and  pity,  behold  and  be  satis- 
fied,— behold,  and  suffer  me,  now  that  I  have 
thus  chastised  him,  to  let  him  go  !  Alas  !  he 
knew  not  the  intensity  of  such  fanatic  hatred 
as  that  which  those  High  Priests  and  rulers 
cherished,  and  had,  for  the  time,  infused  into 
the  obedient  crowd )  how  it  quenches  every 
impulse  of  kindliness  in  the  human  heart, 
and  nerves  the  human  hand  for  deeds  of 
utmost  cruelty.  That  sight  to  which  he 
points,  instead  of  moving  any  pity,  only 
evokes  fresh  outbreaks  of  ferocious  violence  ; 
with  unabated  breath,  the  same  wild  cry  from 
every  side  salutes  the  ear  of  the  Governor — 
*'  Crucify  him,  crucify  him  !"  It  not  only  dis- 
appoints, it  provokes  Pilate  to  be  baffled  thus 
again,  and  baffled  by  such  a  display  of  im- 
movable and  unappeasable  malignity.  "Take 
ye  him  and  crucify  him,"  he  says,  '  crucify 
him  as  best  you  can,  but  do  not  expect  that 
I  shall  countenance  the  deed  by  an}^  counter- 
signing of  your  sentence  in  condemning  the 
man,  as  if  I  thought  he  deserved  to  die — 


BEFORE    PILATE.  159 

take  ye  him  and  crucify  him.  for  I  find  no 
fault  in  him.' 

But  the  yielding  Governor  is  not  in  this 
way  to  slip  out  of  their  hands ;  he,  too,  must 
be  a  party ;  and  now,  at  last,  they  tell  him 
what  hitherto  they  had  concealed — to  show 
him  that  theirs  Was  not  such  a  groundless 
sentence  as  he  imagined  it  to  be — "  AV  e  have 
a  law,"  they  said,  "  and  by  our  law  he  ought 
to  die,  because  he  made  himself  the  Son  of 
God."  It  is  impossible  to  say  what  ideas 
that  phrase,  "  the  Son  of  God,"  excited  in 
the  mind  of  Pilate.  He  was  familiar  with,  all 
the  legends  of  the  heathen  mythologies,  Avhich 
told  of  gods  and  demigods  descending  and 
living  upon  the  earth.  Like  so  many  of  the 
educated  Romans  of  his  day,  he  had  thrown 
off  all  faith  in  their  divinity,  and  yet  some- 
how there  still  lingered  within,  a  faith  in 
something  higher  than  humanity,  some  beings 
superior  to  our  race.  And  what  if  this  Jesus 
were  one  of  these  !  never  in  all  his  intercourse 
with  men,  had  he  met  one  the  least  like  this, 
»ne    who   looked    so    kinglike,    so    Godlike : 


160  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

Kinglike,  Godlike,  even  there  as  he  now 
stands  with  a  robe  of  faded  purple  and  a 
crown  of  plaited  thorns.  Never  in  kingly 
garments,  never  beneath  imperial  crown,  did 
he  see  a  sceptred  sovereign  stand  so  serene, 
so  dignified,  so  far  above  the  men  that  stood 
round  him.  Whatever  the  ideas  were  which 
passed  through  Pilate's  mind  when  he  heard 
that  Jesus  had  made  himself  the  Son  of  God. 
they  deepened  that  awe  which  from  the  first 
had  been  creeping  in  upon  and  taking  pos- 
session of  his  spirit : — he  was  the  more  afraid. 
Once  again,  therefore,  he  takes  Christ  apart, 
and  says  to  him,  "  Whence  art  thou  ? "  '  In 
that  first  interview,  you  told  me  that  your 
kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,  but  whence 
art  thou  thyself?  art  thou  of  this  earth,  I 
mean  like  the  rest  of  us,  or  art  thou  other 
than  thou  seemest, — comest  thou  indeed  from 
heaven?'  But  Jesus  gave  him  no  answer. 
Of  all  the  silences  of  our  Lord  that  day,  of 
which  this  in  number  was  the  fifth,  it  seems 
the  most  difficult  to  understand.  Was  it 
that  Pilate,  by  the  w^ay  in  which  he  had  then 


BEFORE    PILATE.  IGl 

put  the  question,  "  What  is  truth  ?"  without 
pausing  for  a  reply,  had  forfeited  his  right  to 
an  answer  now  ?  Was  it  that  Pilate  was 
wholly  unprepared  to  receive  the  answer; 
that  it  would  have  been  a  casting  of  pearls 
before  swine  to  have  told  him  whence  Jesus 
was?  Was  it  that  the  information,  had  it 
been  given,  while  ineffectual  to  stop  his 
course,  might  have  aggravated  Pilate's  guilt, 
and  therefore,  in  mercy,  was  withheld  ?  We 
cannot  tell ;  but  we  can  perceive  that  the 
very  silence  was  in  itself  an  answer;  for, 
supposing  Jesus  had  been  a  mere  man,  had 
come  into  this  world  even  as  we  all  come, 
would  he,  had  he  been  sincere  and  upright, 
have  hesitated  to  say  whence  he  came  ? 
would  he  have  allowed  Pilate  to  remain  in 
doubt?  would  he  have  suffered  him,  as  his 
question  evidently  implied,  to  cherish  the 
impression  that  he  was  something  more  than 
human  ?  We  can  scarcely  think  he  would. 
By  his  very  silence,  therefore,  our  Lord 
would  throw  Pilate  back  upon  that  incipient 
impression    of    his     Divine    origin,     that    it 


162        crrist's  second  appearance 

might  be  confirmed  and  strengthened  in  his 
breast. 

But  here  again,  even  as  in  the  first  inter- 
view, the  haughtiness  of  the  man  comes  in  to 
quench  all  deeper  thought.  Annoyed  by  this 
silence,  this  calmness,  this  apparent  indiffer- 
ence of  Jesus,  Pihite,  in  all  the  pride  of  office, 
says,  "  Speakest  thou  not  to  me ;  knowest 
thou  not  that  I  have  power  to  crucify  thee, 
and  power  to  release  thee  ?" — a  very  idle  atr 
tempt  to  work  upon  the  mere  selfish  fears  of 
Christ ; — a  question  that  brings  a  speedy 
answer,  one  in  which  rebuke  and  sympathy 
are  singularly  blended  :  '  Thou  couldest  have 
no  power  against  me,  except  it  were  given 
thee  from  above."  "  That  power  of  thine,  to 
crucify  me  or  release,  which  I  do  not  dispute, 
which  thou  mayest  exercise  as  thou  pleasest, 
— do  not  think  that  it  is  a  power  original,  un- 
derived,  independent.  Thou  hast  it,  thou  ex- 
ercisest  it  but  as  Heaven  permits  ;  thou  little 
knowest,  indeed,  what  thou  doest ;  it  is  as  a 
mere  holder  of  the  power  that  thou  art  act- 
ing, acting  at  others "  bidding  ;  therefore,  that 


BEFORE    PILATE.  163 

Jewish  Judge,  who  knowing  far  better  al 
least  than  thou  what  it  was  he  did,  and  who 
it  was  that  he  w^is  giving  up  to  death,' — 
"  therefore  he  that  delivered  rae  unto  thee 
hath  the  greater  sin."  There  is  something 
surely  very  impressive  here  ;  that,  sunk  as 
Jesus  was  beneath  the  weight  of  his  own  suf- 
ferings— sufferings  so  acute,  that  they  well 
might  have  engrossed  his  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings,— he  yet  so  calmly  weighs  in  the  judicial 
balance  the  comparative  guilt  of  the  actors  in 
this  sad  scene,  and  excuses,  as  far  as  he  is 
able,  the  actings  of  Pilate.  It  had  something 
of  its  proper  effect  upon  the  Procurator.  In- 
stead of  diminishing,  it  but  increased  the  de- 
sire he  already  had  to  deliver  him.  He  tried 
again ;  tried  with  still  greater  earnestness  to 
effect  his  object.  But  again  he  failed,  for 
now  the  last  arrow  in  that  quiver  of  his  ad- 
versaries is  shot  at  him — "  If  thou  let  this 
man  go,  thou  art  not  Csesar's  friend  ;  whoso- 
ever maketh  himself  a  king,  speaketh  against 
Ciiesar."  Pilate  knew  that  already  he  stood 
upon  uncertain  ground  with  the  imperial  au- 


164  CHRIST'S    SECOND   APPEARANCE 

thoriiies  ;  he  knew  that  a  fresh  report  of  any 
thing  like  unfaithfuhiess  to  Csesar  would  cost 
him  his  office.  The  risk  of  losing  all  that  by 
occupying  that  office  he  had  hoped  to  gain, 
he  was  not  prepared  to  face,  and  so,  yielding 
to  this  last  pressure,  he  gives  way,  and  de- 
livers up  Jesus  to  be  crucified. 

Now,  let  us  look  a  moment  at  the  faults 
and  at  the  virtues  of  this  man.  The  fact  that 
it  fell  to  his  lot  to  be  Governor  of  Judea  at 
this  time,  and  to  consign  the  Saviour  to  the 
cross,  inclines  us  to  form  exaggerated  notions 
of  his  criminality.  He  was  not,  let  us  be- 
lieve, a  worse  governor  than  many  who  pre- 
ceded and  who  followed  him  in  that  office. 
We  know  from  other  sources  that  he  fre- 
quently showed  but  little  regard  to  human 
life — recklessly,  indeed,  shed  human  blood, 
when  the  shedding  of  it  ministered  to  the  ob- 
jects of  his  ambition  ;  but  we  have  no  reason 
to  believe  that  he  was  a  wantonly  cruel  man, 
or  a  particularly  oppressive  and  tj^rannical 
governor,  as  governors  then  went.  His  treat- 
ment of  Christ  was  marked  by  any  thing  but 


BEFORE    PILATE.  165 

a  contempt  for  justice  and  an  absence  of  all 
human  feeling.  He  showed  a  respect,  a  pity, 
a  tenderness  to  Jesus  Christ  that,  considering 
the  little  that  he  knew  of  him,  excites  our 
wonder.  He  struggled  hard  to  evade  the 
conclusion  to  which,  with  such  unrelenting 
malignity,  the  Jewish  leaders  drove  him.  No 
other  king,  no  other  ruler  with  whom  Christ 
or  his  Apostles  had  to  do,  acted  half  as  con- 
scientiously or  half  as  tenderly  as  Pilate  did. 
Herod,  Felix,  Agrippa, — compare  their  con- 
duct in  like  circumstances  with  that  of  Pilate, 
and  does  he  not  in  your  estimate  rise  superior 
to  them  all  ?  There  is  something  in  the  com- 
punctions, the  relentings,  the  hesitations,  the 
embarrassments  of  Pilate — those  reiterated 
attempts  of  his  to  find  a  w^ay  of  escape  for 
himself  and  for  Christ,  that  takes  a  strong 
hold  upon  our  sympathy.  We  can  not  but 
pity,  even  while  forced  to  condemn.  Con- 
demn, indeed,  we  must ;  for — 

1.  He  "was  false  to  his  own  convictions  ;  he 
was  satisfied  that  Christ  was  innocent.  In- 
stead of  acting  at  once  and  decideiily  upon 


166  CHRIST'S    SECOND    APPEARANCE 

that  conviction,  he  dallied  and  he  parleyed 
with  it ;  sought  to  find  some  way  by  which 
he  might  get  rid  of  that  clear  and  imperatii'e 
duty  which  it  laid  upon  him  ;  and  by  so  doing 
he  weakened  and  unsettled  this  conAaction, 
and  prepared  for  its  being  overborne. 

2.  He  exhibited  a  sad  degree  of  vacillation, 
inconsistency,  indecision.  Now  he  throws  all 
blame  upon  the  Priests  :  "  I  am  innocent  of 
his  blood ;  see  ye  to  it."  Again,  he  takes 
the  entire  responsibihty  upon  himself : 
"  Knowest  thou  not  that  I  have  power  to 
crucify  thee,  and  power  to  release  ?"  Now 
he  pronounces  Jesus  innocent,  yet  with  the 
same  breath  proposes  to  have  him  punished 
as  guilty  :  now  he  gives  him  up,  and  then  he 
has  recourse  to  every  kind  of  expedient  to 
rescue.  Unstable  as  water,  he  does  not,  he 
cannot  succeed. 

3.  He  allowed  others  to  dictate  to  him. 
Carelessly  and  inconsiderately  he  submits 
that  to  their  judgment  which  he  should  have 
kept  wholly  within  his  own  hold.  He  be- 
comes thus  as  a  wave  of  the  sea,  as  a  feather 


BEFORE    PILATE.  167 

in    the   air,  which  every    breeze   of  heaven 
bloweth  about  as  it  listeth. 

4.  He  allowed  worldly  interest  to  pre- 
dominate over  the  sense  of  duty.  Such  was 
the  plain  and  simple  issue  to  which  it  came 
at  last  :  Do  the  thing  he  knew  was  right — 
acquit  the  Saviour — do  that,  and  run  all 
risks  ;  or  do  the  thing  he  knew  was  wrong — 
do  that,  and  escape  all  danger.  Such  was 
the  alternative  which  was  at  last  presented 
to  him.  Alas  for  Pilate  !  he  chose  the  latter. 
But  let  each  of  us  now  ask  himself,  Had  I 
been  placed  exactly  in  his  position,  with  those 
hghts  only  to  guide  me  that  he  then  had, 
should  I  have  acted  a  better  and  bolder  part  ? 
We  may  think  and  hope  we  should ;  but,  in 
thinking  so  and  hoping  so,  let  us  remember 
how  often,  when  conscience  and  duty  pointed 
in  the  one  direction,  and  passion  and  self- 
interest  pointed  in  the  other,  we  have  acted 
over  and  over  again  the  very  part  of  Pilate ; 
hesitated  and  wavered,  and  argued  and  de- 
bated, and  opened  our  ears  to  what  others 
told  us,  or  allowed  ourselves  to  be  borne  away 


168    SECOND  APPEARANCE  BEFORE  PILATE. 

by  some  strong  tide  that  was  running  in  the 
wrong  direction.  Nay  more,  how  often  have 
we,  knowing  ns  we  do,  or  profess  to  do,  who 
Christ  was,  whence  he  came,  what  he  did  for 
us,  and  whither  he  has  gone, — ^how  often  have 
we  given  him  up  into  unfriendly  hands,  to  do 
with  him  what  they  woukl,  without  even  the 
washing  of  our  own,  or  the  saying  what  we 
thouglit  of  him ! 


VII. 

The  mockeries  of  the  Judgment  Hall  ended. 
Jesus  is  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the  offi- 
cers, to  be  led  away  to  the  place  of  execution. 
It  cannot  now  be  settled  with  certainty  or 
exactness,  where  this  hill  of  Calvary  was 
situated,  nor  how  far  it  was  from  the  resi- 
dence of  Pilate.  It  lay,  we  know,  without 
the  city  gate,  and  a  very  ancient  tradition 
points  us  to  a  low,  bare,  rounded  elevation, 
outside  and  near  the  walls,  which  resembled 
somewhat  in  its  form  a  human  skull,  and  is 
supposed  to  have  got  from  that  resemblance 
the  name  it  bore,  of  Golgotha.  If  that  indeed 
was  Calvary,  the  way  was  but  a  short  one 
which  the  sad   procession   had  to   traverse. 

*  Matt.  xxviL  31-34;  Luke  xxiii.  27-32. 
8 


170  THE    DAUGHTERS    OF 

First,  however,  ere  beginning  the  mournful 
march,  they  strip  our  Lord  of  the  purple  robe 
they  had  thrown  around  his  bleeding  shoul- 
ders, and  put  his  own  raiment  on  him.  It  is 
not  said  that  they  took  the  crown  of  thorns 
from  his  bleeding  brow ;  he  may  have  worn 
that  to  the  last.  It  was  part  of  the  degrada- 
tion of  a  public  crucifixion  that  the  doomed 
one  should  assist  in  carrying  to  the  place  of 
crucifixion  the  instrument  of  death.  They 
might  have  spared  this  indignity  to  Jesus ; 
they  might  have  had  some  compassion  as 
they  saw  with  what  a  faint  and  weary  step 
he  walked.  But  compassion  has  no  place  in 
the  hearts  of  these  crucifiers,  and  so  they  lay 
the  common  burden  on  him.  He  sinks  be- 
neath the  load.  They  must  relieve  him  of 
it ;  but  who  will  bear  it  instead  ?  not  one  of 
themselves  will  stoop  to  the  low  office.  A 
stranger,  a  man  from  Africa,  Simon  the  Cy- 
renian,  coming  in  from  the  country,  meets 
them  by  the  way.  He  would  willingly  have 
let  the  crowd  go  by  that  presses  on  to  Cal- 
var^i .     But  he  is  the  very  kind  of  man  whom 


JERUSALEM   WEEPING.  171 

they  can  turn  into  a  tool  to  do  this  piece  of 
drudgery.  They  lay  hold  of  him  and  compel 
him  to  take  up  what  Jesus  was  too  weak  to 
bear.  Unwillingly  he  had  to  obey,  to  turn 
upon  his  steps,  and  follow  Jesus,  bearing  after 
him  the  cross ;  a  reluctant  instrument  of  an 
overbearing  soldiery  and  a  haughty  priest- 
hood. 

So  far  as  we  can  learn,  Simon  had  no  pre- 
vious knowledge  of,  had  no  special  interest  in 
Christ;  instead  of  any  great  sympath}^  with 
him  at  the  moment,  he  may  rather  have  felt 
and  resented  it  as  a  hardship,  that  such  a  ser- 
vice should  have  been  exacted  of  him,  and  in 
such  imperious  fashion.  But  this  compulsory 
companionship  with  Jesus  in  the  bearing  of 
the  cross,  carried  him  to  Calvary ;  the  sad 
tragedy  enacted  there  forced  him  with  so 
many  other  idle  spectators  to  the  spot.  He 
stood  there  gazing  upon  the  scene  ;  he  heard 
the  words  that  came  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  ; 
he  felt  the  three  hours'  darkness  come  down, 
and  wrap  them  all  around.  As  the  darkness 
cleared  away,  he  saw  the  centurion  standing 


172  THE   DAUGHTERS    OF 

transfixed  before  the  central  cross,  as  Jesna 
cried  with  a  loud  voice,   and  gave  up  the 
ghost.     He  heard  that  Roman  officer,  a  stran- 
ger like  himself,  break  forth  with  the  excla- 
mation :  "  Truly  this  was  the  Son  of  God  !" 
What  impression  all  that  he   saw  and  heard 
then  made  upon  him  we   are  not  informed. 
From  its  being  said,  however,  that  he  was  the 
father  of  Alexander  and  Rufus,  whom  Mark 
speaks   of  as  being  well-known  disciples  of 
tlie  Lord,  may  we  not  indulge  the  belief  that 
he  who,  when  he  was  lifted  up,  was  to  draw 
all  men  unto  him,  that  day  drew  this  Cyrenian 
to  himself;  that  the  sight  of  those  sufferings 
and  of  that  death  led  Simon  to  inquire  ;  that 
the  inquiry  conducted   to   discipleship ;  and 
that  ever  after  he  had  to  thank  the  Lord  for 
the  strange  arrangement   of  his  providence, 
which  led  him  along  that  way  into  the  city, 
at   the  very  time  when  they  were  leading 
Jesus  out  to  be  crucified  ;  that  he  met  the 
crowd   at  the  very  moment  that  they  were 
wanting  some  one  to  do  that  menial  service 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  173 

which  ill  so  rough  a  mumer  they  pressed  him 
to  undertake  ? 

Another  incident  marked  the  sorrowful 
procession  to  Calvary,  Some  women  of  the 
city,  looking  at  him,  as  first  he  bends  beneath 
the  cross,  and  then,  with  aspect  so  meek  and 
gentle,  yet  so  sad  and  sorrow-stricken,  moves 
onward  to  be  crucified,  have  their  feelings  so 
deeply  touched,  that,  unable  to  restrain  their 
emotions,  they  openly  bewail  and  lament  his 
doom.  These  are  not  the  women  who  had 
followed  him  from  Galilee,  and  been  in  the 
habit  of  ministering  to  him.  No  more  than 
Simon,  were  they  numbered  with  his  disci- 
ples. It  was  not  with  such  grief  as  any  of 
the  Marj's  would  have  felt,  had  they  been  in 
the  crowd,  that  these  women  were  affected. 
They  were  not  lamenting  the  loss  of  a  teacher, 
a  master,  a  friend  they  had  learned  to  revere 
and  love.  They  had  joined  the  crowd  as  it 
gathered  in  the  city  thoroughfares  through 
which  it  passed.  The  singular  but  common 
curiosity  to  look  at  men  who  are  soon  to  die, 
and  to  see  how  they  comport  themselves  in 


174  THE    DAUGHTERS    OF 

front  of  death,  has  drawn  them  on.  Soon, 
however,  out  of  the  three  who  are  going  forth 
to  be  crucified,  their  attention  fixes  upon 
Jesus.  Something  of  him  they  may  have 
known  before  ;  some  part  of  his  story  they 
may  have  picked  up  by  the  way.  They  hear 
nothing  friendly  to  him  from  any  who  are 
there  around  them.  The  spirit  of  the  crowd 
they  mingle  with  is  one  of  rude  and  bitter 
hatred  towards  him.  But  woman's  loving  eye 
looks  on  him,  woman's  tender  heart  is  melted 
at  the  sight ;  and,  despite  of  all  the  restraint 
that  might  have  been  imposed  on  them  by  the 
tone  and  temper  of  that  crowd,  revelling  with 
savage  delight  at  the  prospect  of  his  cruci- 
fixion, and  led  on  by  some  of  the  chief  men 
of  the  city,  they  give  free  vent  to  that  gen- 
erous pity  which  swells  their  bosoms.  They 
weep  as  they  follow  him.  This  weeping,  the 
only  circumstance,  so  far  as  we  know,  attend- 
ing his  passage  out  to  Calvary,  that  attracted 
the  special  notice  of  our  Lord,  was  the  only 
one  which  induced  him  to  break  the  patient 
silence  he  all  along  observed.     But  how  does 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  175 

he  notice  it  ?  What  does  he  say  ?  He 
stops  ;  he  turns  ;  he  fixes  his  eye  upon  the 
weepers  ;  and  he  says,  "  Daughters  of  Jeru- 
salem, weep  not  for  me,  but  weep  for  ^''our- 
selves,  and  for  your  children." 

"  Wee])  not  for  me.'''  Does  he  reject  that 
simple  tribute  of  sympathy  which  they  are 
rendering  ?  Is  he  in  any  sense  displeased  at 
the  tears  they  shed  ?  Does  he  blame  or  for- 
bid such  tears  ?  Not  thus  are  we  to  interpret 
our  Saviour's  words.  It  may  be  quite  true 
that  it  was  not  from  any  very  deep,  much  less 
from  any  very  pure  or  holy  fountain,  that 
those  tears  were  flowing.  It  may  have  been 
nothing  about  him  but  the  shame  and  the 
agony  he  had  to  suffer  which  drew  them  out. 
Still,  they  are  tears  of  kindly  pity,  and  such 
tears  it  never  could  have  been  his  meaning  or 
intention  to  condemn.  He  had  freely  shed 
such  tears  himself.  They  fell  before  the 
tomb  of  Lazarus,  fell  simply  at  sight  of  the 
weeping  sisters,  and  of  the  Jews  weeping 
along  with  them.  Sympathy  with  human 
suffering,  simply  and  purely  as  such,  claims 


176  THE   DAUGHTERS   OP 

the  sanction  of  the  tears  which  upon  that 
occasion  the  Saviour  shed ;  and  that  sanction 
covers  the  bewailing  of  these  daughters  of 
Jerusalem.  Jesus  is  not  displeased  with, 
Jesus  does  not  reject,  the  expression  of  their 
pity.  So  far  from  this,  the  tender  sympathy 
that  they  show  for  him  stirs  a  still  deeper 
sympathy  for  them  within  his  heart.  This  is 
the  way  that  he  acknowledges  and  thanks 
them  for  their  tears.  He  thinks  of  them,  he 
feels  for  them  ;  he  forgets  his  own  impending 
griefs  as  he  contemplates  theirs.  It  had  been 
but  an  hour  or  so  before,  that  all  the  people 
who  gathered  round  the  bar  of  Pilate  had 
cried  out,  "  His  blood  be  on  us,  and  on  our 
children  !"  How  little  did  they  know  what  a 
doom  it  was  they  thus  invoked  upon  them- 
selves ;  how  near  and  how  terrible !  But 
Jesus  knew  it ;  had  thought  of  it  perhaps 
when  that  wild  cry  arose  ;  was  thinking  of  it 
still.  He  had  those  scenes  of  famine,  fire, 
and  slaughter,  when  that  ill-fated  city  of  his 
crucifiers  should  see  the  execution  of  the  sen- 
tence they  had  called  down  upon  their  own 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  177 

head, — he  had  them  all  before  his  eye  when 
he  turned  to  those  women  by  the  way,  and 
said  to  them,  "  Daughters  of  Jerusalem,  weep 
not  for  me,  but  weep  for  yourselves,  and  for 
your  children.  For,  behold,  the  days  are 
coming,  in  the  which  they  shall  say.  Blessed 
are  the  barren,  and  the  wombs  that  never 
bare,  and  the  paps  which  never  gave  suck. 
Then  shall  they  begin  to  say  to  the  moun- 
tains. Fall  on  us  ;  and  to  the  hills.  Cover  us." 
Many  of  the  very  women  who  were  lament- 
ing Jesus  by  the  way,  may  have  perished  in 
the  siege  of  Jerusalem.  That  siege  took 
place  within  less  than  forty  years  from  the 
day  of  our  Lord's  crucifixion.  Some  of  the 
younger  mothers  of  that  weeping  band,  would 
not  have  then  seen  out  the  threescore  years 
and  ten  of  human  life.  Their  children  would 
be  all  in  middle  life,  constituting  the  genera- 
tion upon  which  those  woes  were  to  descend 
which,  three  days  before,  while  sitting  quietly 
on  the  Mount  of  Olives  with  his  disciples, 
looking  across  the  valley  upon  the  Holy  City, 
Jesus  had  described  by  saying,  that  in  those 


178  THE    DAUGHTERS    OP 

days  there  should  be  great  tribulation,  such 
as  was  not  from  the  beginning  of  the  world  to 
that  time,  no,  nor  even  should  be  again. 
When  in  the  straitness  of  that  terrible  siege, 
before  the  terrors  of  the  last  assault,  they 
crept  into  the  underground  passages  and  sew- 
ers of  the  city ;'  when  those  who  escaped  out 
of  the  city  hid  themselves  in  the  dens  and 
rocks  of  the  mountains, — then  were  those 
prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Hosea,  which  our 
Saviour  had  obviously  before  him — some  of 
whose  words,  indeed,  he  quotes — in  part  ful- 
filled. But  just  as,  in  that  more  lengthened 
discourse  which  our  Lord  had  so  recently 
delivered  to  his  disciples,  he  mixed  up  in  a 
way  that  it  is  impossible  wholly  to  unravel, 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  his  second  com- 
ing, and  the  end  of  the  world ;  so  also,  even 
within  the  compass  of  this  short  speech  to  the 
daughters  of  Jerusalem,  it  is  easy  enough  to 
perceive  that,  beyond  that  nearer  and  more 
limited  event,  of  which  these  women  and  their 
children  were  to  be  spectators,  our  Lord  looks 
forward  to  the  wider  judgment,  which  at  the 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  179 

close  of  all  was  to  enfold  the  whole  world  of 
the  impenitent  in  its  embrace. 

And  widening  thus,  as  we  are  warranted  to 
do,  the  scope  and  bearing  of  our  Lord's  words 
to  these  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  let  us  ask 
ourselves,  what  message  of  instruction  and  of 
warning  do  they  convey  to  us  and  to  all  men  ? 
First,  I  think  we  shall  not  be  wrong  if  we 
interpret  them  as  indicating  to  us  the  unpro- 
fitableness of  that  sympathy  with  human  suf- 
fering which  takes  in  nothing  but  the  suffer- 
ing it  sees,  and  which  expends  itself  alone  in 
tears.  The  sympathy  excited  in  the  breasts 
of  these  women  of  Jerusalem  w^as  of  this  kind. 
It  was  the  spectacle  of  human  grief  then  be- 
fore their  eyes  which  had  awakened  it ;  there 
was  a  danger,  at  least,  that  those  sensibilities, 
so  deeply  moved  as  long  as  the  spectacle  was 
before  them,  should  collapse  when  that  spec- 
tacle was  withdrawn,  and  leave  the  heart 
quickened,  it  might  be,  in  its  susceptibility  to 
the  mere  emotion  of  compassion,  yet  not  other- 
wise improved.  Weep  not,  then,  the  Saviour 
says  to  them,  and  says  to  usj  weep  not  for 


180  THE   DAUGHTERS    OF 

me ;  weep  not,  or  weep  not  long,  and  weep 
not  idly,  over  any  sight  or  story  of  human 
suffering  which  calls  not  for  your  interference, 
which  you  have  no  power,  not  even  by  the 
sympathy  that  you  expend  upon  it,  to  miti- 
gate ;  or  if,  naturally  and  irresistibly,  properly 
and  becomingly,  your  tears  flow  forth,  stop 
not  at  their  shedding,  do  not  indolently  in- 
dulge the  mere  sentiment  of  pity;  such  in- 
dulgence may  become  but  a  piece  of  selfish 
gratification,  narrowing  the  heart  and  paralyz- 
ing the  hand  for  the  dispositions  and  the  do- 
ings of  a  true  and  genuine  benevolence.  Pity 
was  never  meant  by  the  Creator  to  be  separ- 
ately or  exclusively  cultivated  as  an  isolated 
emotion;  it  was  meant  to  be  the  spring  and 
the  ally  of  a  ready  and  generous  aid  held  out 
to  its  object;  to  be  the  stimulus  to,  and  the 
support  of  active  effort.  And  such  is  the 
structure  of  that  beautiful  and  nicely-balanced 
instrument,  the  human  spirit,  that  if  this 
established  connexion  between  action  and 
emotion  be  overlooked ;  if  you  foster  the  one 
without  letting  it  lead  on  to  the  other,  you 


JERUSALEM   WEEPING.  181 

do  a  serious  damage  to  the  soul ;  you  create 
in  one  region  a  monstrous  overgrowth,  in  an- 
other a  stunted  deformity  ;  and  you  dislocate 
and  disconnect  what  the  Creator  intended 
should  always  be  conjoined. 

Take  here  the  familiar  instance  of  indulg- 
ing to  excess  the  reading  of  exciting  fiction — 
tales  in  which  the  hero  of  the  story  passes 
through  terrible  trials,  endurances,  agonies  of 
mind  and  heart.  Our  heart  may  pulsate  all 
through  with  pity  as  we  read ;  we  may  wet 
with  tears  the  page  that  spreads  out  some 
heart-rending  scene.  Now,  I  am  not  going  to 
say  that  it  is  in  itself  a  wrong,  or  a  sinful 
thing,  or  even  a  hurtful  thing,  to  read  such 
stories.  On  the  contrary,  I  believe  that  it  is 
not  wrong ;  that  it  may  be  as  beneficial  as  it 
is  agreeable  occasionally  to  do  so.  There  are 
peculiar  and  there  are  good  services  to  mind 
and  heart  that  a  well-executed  fiction  may 
render,  which  you  cannot  have  rendered  in 
any  other  way  so  well.  But  let  such  kind  of 
reading  usurp  the  place  that  should  be  given 
to  other  and  better  employment ;  let  the  taste 


182  THE    DAUGHTERS   OF 

for  it  be  gratified,  without  the  consideration 
of    anything   beyond    the   pleasure   that    it 
yields  ;   let  the  heart  of  the  reader,  with  all 
its  manifold  affections,  give  itself  up  to  be 
played  upon  continually  by  the  hand  of  some 
great  master  in  the  art  of  quickening  to  the 
uttermost  its  sympathies  with  human  passions 
and  human  griefs ;  will  that  heart,  whose  sen- 
sibilities may  thus  be  stimulated  until  it  yield 
to  the  gentlest  touch  of  the  great  describer, 
will  it  be  made  kinder  and  better  in  its  dispo- 
sitions ?  will  it  even  be  made  more  tender  to 
the  sorrows  of  the  real  suiferers  among  whom 
it  lives  and  moves  ?     Is  it  not  notoriously  the 
reverse  ?     You  will  find  few  more  selfish,  few 
less  practically  benevolent   than   those  who 
expend  all  their  stores   of  pity  upon  ideal 
woes.     It  is  a  deep  weU  of  pity,  that  which 
God  has  sunk  in  most  human  hearts.     They 
are  healing,  refreshing,  fructifying  waters  that 
it  sends  forth  to  cover  the  sorrows  of  the  sor- 
rowful ;   but  if  these  waters  be  dammed  up 
within  the  heart,  they  become  first  stagnant, 
and  then  the  breeders  of  many  noxious  va- 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  183 

pors,  under  which  the  true  and  simple  chari- 
ties wither  away. 

But  let  us  now  give  to  our  Lord's  words  a 
more  direct  application  to  himself;  to  himself 
as  the  bearer  of  the  cross.  It  cannot  be 
thought  that  all  sympathy  with  the  Man  of 
sorrows  is  forbidden.  The  recital,  especially 
of  his  last  sufferings,  would  not  have  been  so 
full  and  so  minute  as  it  is  in  the  sacred  page, 
had  it  not  been  intended  to  take  hold  thereby 
of  that  sympathy.  But  the  contemplation  of 
Christ  merely  as  a  sufferer,  if  it  terminate  in 
nothing  else  than  the  excitement  of  sympa- 
thy, is  a  barren  contemplation.  Offer  him 
nothing  besides  your  compassion,  he  repu- 
diates and  rejects  it.  It  is  to  dishonor  the 
Redeemer  to  class  him  with  those  unfortu- 
nates, those  unwilling  victims  of  distress, 
wdiose  unexampled  sorrows  knock  hard  at 
the  heart  for  pity.  Our  pity  he  does  not 
ask,  he  does  not  need.  lie  spreads  out  before 
us  his  unparalleled  griefs ;  he  says,  "  Behold, 
and  see  if  there  be  any  sorrow  like  unto  my 
sorrow ;"  but  he  does  so  not  to  win  from  us 


184  THE    DAUGHTERS    OF 

compassion,  but  to  prove  how  he  has  loved 
us,  loved  us  even  to  the  death,  suirevino;  and 
dying  for  our  redemption.  His  sorrows  should 
set  us  thinking  of  our  sins.  Those  sufferings 
which  rested  upon  him  when  he  took  his 
place  as  our  great  Head  and  Representative, 
should  bring  up  before  our  minds  the  suffer- 
ings which  hang  suspended  over  the  heads  of 
the  finally  imiDenitent  and  unbelieving. 

"Weep  not  for  me,  but  weep  for  your- 
selves :  for  if  these  things  be  done  in  a  green 
tree,  what  shall  be  done  in  the  dry  ?"  He 
was  himself  the  Green  Tree ;  the  fresh,  the 
vigorous  Vine, — its  stock  full  of  sap,  its 
branches  all  nourished  by  union  with  that 
parent,  life-giving  Stem.  Was  he,  then — in 
condition  so  unlike  to  that  of  fuel  ready  for 
the  fire — cast  into  that  great  furnace  of  afflic- 
tion? Had  he  to  endure  all  its  scorching, 
though  to  him  unconsuming  flames  ?  What 
shall  be  done  with  him  whose  heart  softens 
not  at  the  sight  of  this  divine  and  all-endur- 
ing love  :  whose  heart  closes  up  and  hardens 
against  God  and  Christ,  till  it  becomes  like 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  185 

one  of  those  dry  and  withered  branches  which 
men  gather  and  cast  into  the  fire  ?  If  God 
spared  not  his  own  Son,  but  gave  him  up  to 
the  death  for  us  all,  who  is  there,  among  the 
rejecters  and  despisers  of  such  a  Saviour,  that 
he  will  spare  ?  Or  if  you  would  have  the 
same  argument  set  before  you  in  yet  another 
form,  take  it  as  presented  by  Peter :  "  For 
the  time  is  come  that  judgment  must  begin  at 
the  house  of  God  :  and  if  it  first  begin  at  us, 
what  shall  the  end  be  of  them  that  obey  not 
the  gospel  of  God?  And  if  the  righteous 
scarcely  be  saved,  where  shall  the  ungodly 
and  the  sinner  appear?"  I  shall  make  no 
attempt  either  to  expand  or  enforce  the  argu- 
ment thus  employed.  Let  me  only  remind 
you,  that  it  was  by  these  strange  and  solemn 
words  of  warning,  "  If  they  do  these  things 
in  a  green  tree,  what  shall  be  done  in  the 
drj'  ?"  that  our  Lord  closed  the  public  teach- 
ing of  his  ministry  upon  earth.  Quiet  as  our 
skies  now  look,  and  secure  and  stable  as  all 
things  around  us  seem,  the  days  are  coming, 
■ — he  has  told  us  among  his  latest  sayings, — 


186  THE   DAUGHTERS    OP 

when  those  who  resist  the  approaches  of  hia 
love  shall  see  him  in  other  guise,  and  when  at 
the  sight  they  shall  cry  to  the  mountains, 
"Fall  on  us,  and  to  the  hiUs,  Cov<:r  us;  hide 
us  from  the  face  of  him  that  sitteth  upon  the 
throne,  and  from  the  wrath  of  the  Lamb :  for 
the  great  day  of  his  wrath  is  come ;  and  who 
shall  be  able  to  stand  ?"  How  wise  and  good 
a  thing  were  it  for  us  all,  in  prospect  of  such 
days  coming,  to  hide  ourselves  even  now  in 
the  clefts  of  the  smitten  Rock ;  to  hide  our- 
selves in  Jesus  Christ  as  our  loving  Lord  and 
Saviour;  that,  safe  within  that  covert,  the 
tribulation  of  those  days  may  not  reach  us  ! 

And  now  let  me  crave  your  attention,  for  a 
moment  or  two,  to  that  singular  tie  of  thought 
which  so  quickly  linked  together  in  the  mind 
of  the  Saviour  the  sight  of  those  sorrowful 
daughters  of  Jerusalem,  with  the  fearful  doom 
that  was  impending  over  their  city.  It  is 
very  remarkable  how  frequently  and  how 
vividly,  in  all  its  minute  details,  the  coining 
destruction  of  Jerusalem  was  present  to  his 
thoughts  during  the  last  days  and  hours  of 


JERUSALEM   WEEPING.  187 

his  earthly  ministry.  From  the  day  that  he 
raised  Lazarus  from  the  grave, — knowing  that 
his  enemies  had  taken  counsel  together  to  put 
him  to  death, — Jesus  walked  no  more  openly 
among  the  Jews.  He  retired  to  the  country 
beyond  Jordan,  near  to  the  wilderness.  His 
hour  at  last  approached,  and  he  set  his  face 
to  go  up  to  Jerusalem  to  be  crucified.  He 
was  in  a  part  of  the  country  that  was  under 
Herod's  jurisdiction,  and  they  told  him  that 
Herod  sought  to  kill  him.  It  cannot  be,  he 
said,  that  a  prophet  perish  out  of  Jerusalem. 
The  naming  of  the  holy  city  ;  the  thought  of 
all  the  blood  of  all  the  prophets  that  was  to 
cry  out  against  her,  and  to  seal  her  doom, 
filled  his  heart  with  sadness,  and  instantly  he 
broke  out  into  the  exclamation,  "  0  Jerusa 
lem,  Jerusalem !  thou  that  killest  the  pro- 
phets, and  stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto 
thee,  how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy 
children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth 
her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would 
not !  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you 
desolate !" 


188  THE    DAUGHTERS    OF 

On  the  Saturday  before  his  death  he  arrives 
at  Bethany.  Next  day  he  ascends  the  Mount 
of  Olives.  In  the  city  they  have  heard  of 
his  coming.  They  go  out  to  meet  him,  they 
hail  him  as  they  had  never  done  before. 
Garments  and  palm-branches  are  spread  upon 
the  ground  that  he  is  to  tread.  Before  him 
and  around  him  the  voices  of  the  multitude 
are  shouting  "  Hosanna  !  Blessed  is  he  that 
Cometh  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  Hosanna 
to  the  Son  of  David  !  Hosanna  in  the  high- 
est !"  The  ridge  of  the  hill  is  reached,  and 
Jerusalem  bursts  upon  the  view,  lying  across 
the  valley  spread  out  before  the  eye.  He 
pauses ;  he  gazes ;  his  eyes  they  fill  with 
tears.  How  strange  it  looks  to  that  jubilant 
multitude  !  Ah !  other  sounds  than  their 
hosannas  are  falling  on  the  Saviour's  inner 
ear ;  other  sights  than  that  of  their  waving 
palm-branches  are  rising  before  his  prophetic 
eye.  He  weeps ;  and,  without  naming  it, 
looking  at  the  doomed  city,  and  pointing  to 
it,  he  says  :  "  If  thou  hadst  known,  even  thou, 
at  least  in  this  thy  day,  the  things  which  be- 


JERUSALEM   WEEPING.  189 

long  unto  thy  peace  !  but  now  they  are  hid 
from  thine  eyes.  For  the  days  shall  come 
upon  thee,  that  thine  enemies  shall  cast  a 
trench  about  thee,  and  compass  thee  round, 
and  keep  thee  in  on  every  side,  and  shall  lay 
thee  even  with  the  ground,  and  thy  children 
within  thee ;  and  they  shall  not  leave  in  thee 
one  stone  upon  another ;  because  thou  knew- 
est  not  the  time  of  thy  visitation." 

Christ's  last  day  in  the  Temple  and  in 
Jerusalem  was  one  of  great  excitement,  of 
varied  incident.  Question  after  question 
about  his  authority  to  teach,  about  the  pay- 
ment of  tribute-money,  about  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  dead,  is  put  to  him.  Attempt 
after  attempt  is  made  to  entangle  him  in  his 
talk.  At  last,  from  being  the  assailed,  Jesus 
in  his  turn  becomes  the  assailant,  puts  the 
question  about  Christ  being  David's  Son  and 
David's  Lord,  which  none  of  them  can  an- 
swer, and  then  proceeds  to  launch  his  terrible 
denunciations  at  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees. 
Woe  is  heaped  upon  woe,  till  all  the  righteous 
blood  shed  upon  the  earth  seems  coming  on 


190  THE   DAUGHTERS   OF 

the  men  of  that  generation,  and  concen- 
tratedly  upon  that  city  of  Jerusalem.  Again, 
as  when  he  first  turned  his  face  towards  the 
holy  city,  the  thought  melts  his  spirit  into 
tenderness;  the  indignation  dissolves  and 
passes  away,  as,  taking  up  the  same  words 
he  had  used  before,  he  exclaims,  "  0  Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem !  thou  that  killest  the  pro- 
phets, and  stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto 
thee,  how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy 
children  together,  even  as  a  hen  gathereth 
her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would 
not !  Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you 
desolate," — our  Lord's  last  words  within  the 
Temple. 

As  they  went  out  in  the  afternoon  of  that 
day,  "  Master,"  said  one  of  his  disciples  to 
him,  "  see  what  manner  of  stones  and  what 
buildings  are  here  !  Jesus  answering,  said 
unto  him,  Seest  thou  these  great  buildings  ? 
Verily  I  say  unto  you,  there  shall  not  be  left 
here  one  stone  upon  another  that  shall  not  be 
thrown  down."  Later  in  the  evening  of  that 
day — two  days  before  his  crucifixion — he  sat 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  191 

upon  the  Mount  of  Olives  over  against  the 
Temple,  looking  once  again  at  these  great 
buildings,  and  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  of  his 
disciples,  tired  though  he  must  have  been, 
with  all  the  incidents  of  a  most  harassing  day, 
he  entered  upon  that  lengthened  prophecy  in 
which  he  told  how  Jerusalem  should  be  trod- 
den down  of  the  Gentiles.  And  now  again, 
in  this  last  stage  of  his  way  to  Calvary,  the 
days  that  he  had  spoken  of  so  particularly  in 
that  prophecy  are  once  more  before  his  eyes. 
How  shall  we  explain  all  this  ?  How  was  it 
that  the  city  of  Jerusalem  had  such  a  hold 
upon  the  heart  of  Jesus  Christ  ?  How  was  it 
that  the  joys  and  the  sorrows,  the  provoca- 
tions and  the  sympathies  of  his  latest  days, 
all  alike,  by  some  mysterious  link  of  associa- 
tion, called  up  before  his  thoughts  the  terrible 
calamities  which  Jerusalem  was  to  endure  ? 
Grant  all  that  can  be  claimed  for  Jerusalem 
in  the  way  of  pre-eminence  both  as  to  cha- 
racter and  destiny  over  all  the  cities  of  this 
earth ;  acknowledge  the  power  that  the  close 
connexion  between  our  Lord's  own  death  and 


192  THE   DAUGHTERS   OP 

its  destruction  must  have  exerted  upon  his 
mind  ;  but  beside  all  this,  may  we  not  believe 
that  in  the  human  heart  of  Jesus,  as  we  know 
that  there  was  room  for  special  affection,  indi- 
vidual attachment,  so  also  was  there  room  for 
the  patriotic  sentiment,  that  love  of  country 
by  which  every  true  man  of  woman  born  is 
characterized  ?  Jesus  was  a  Jew.  Judea 
was  the  land  of  his  birth.  Jerusalem  was 
the  chief  city  of  that  land.  Around  its  ear- 
lier and  its  later  history  there  gathered  all  of 
joyful  and  of  sorrowful  interest  that  could 
touch  a  Jewish  heart.  And  it  touched  the 
spirit  of  Jesus  to  contemplate  its  downfall. 
Are  we  wrong  in  thinking  that  with  that 
which  was  divine,  and  that  wliich  was  broadly 
human,  there  mingled  a  Jewish,  a  patriotic 
element  in  the  grief  which  shed  tears  over  its 
destruction?  If  love  of  country  form  part  of 
a  perfect  man,  shall  we  not  believe  that,  puri- 
fied from  all  imperfection, — its  narrowness, 
its  exclusiveness,  its  selfishness, — that  affec- 
tion had  a  place  and  found  a  home  in  the 
bosom  of  our  Lord  ? 


JERUSALEM    WEEPING.  103 

At  such  a  season  as  this  in  the  history  of 
our  own  land  we  would  fain  believe  so.  A 
common  loss,  a  common  grief,  a  common 
sympathy,  has  knit  all  hearts  together  as 
they  have  but  rarely  been  united.  He  can 
have  been  no  ordinary  Prince,  whose  death 
has  caused  so  general,  such  universal  grief. 
And  she  assuredly  is  no  ordinary  Queen, 
whose  sorrow  has  been  made  their  own  by  so 
many  millions  of  human  hearts.  There  is 
something  cementing,  purifying,  ennobling,  in 
a  whole  nation  mourning  as  ours  does  now. 
Let  us  try  to  consecrate  that  mourning,  and 
whilst  we  give  to  our  beloved  Sovereign  the 
entire  sjmpathy  of  our  heart,  only  wishing 
that  she  fully  knew*  what  a  place  she  holds 
in  the  affections  of  her  people,  let  'is  lift  up 
our  hearts  in  gratitude  to  Him  who  has  be- 
stowed on  us  in  her  such  a  priceless  treasure, 
and  let  us  Kft  up  prayers  to  heaven,  that  she 
may  have   imparted  to  her  that  comfort  and 


*  This  Lecture  was  delivered  on  the  Sunday  succeeding  the 
death  of  the  Prince  Consort,  and  before  full  expression  of  public 
Bjmpathy  had  been  given. 


194        DAUGHTERS    OF    JERUSALEM   WEEPING. 

thai  strength,  which,  in  such  sorrow  as  hers, 
the  highest  and  the  humblest  of  earth  equally 
need,  and  which  are  bestowed  alike  on  all 
who  ask,  and  trust,  and  hope,  in  and  tl.rough 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 


VITI. 


mu  ^imitwi  mut* 


One  of  the  first  things  done  by  the  Uoman 
soldiers  to  whom  the  execution  of  the  sen- 
tence was  committed,  was  to  strip  our  Sa- 
viour and  to  nail  him  to  the  cross.  We  do 
not  know  whether  that  cruel  operation  of 
transfixing  the  hands  and  feet  was  performed 
while  the  cross  yet  lay  upon  the  ground,  or 
after  it  was  erected.  They  offered  him, — ^in 
kindness  let  us  believe  rather  than  in  scorn, 
wine  mingled  with  myrrh,  an  anodyne  or 
soothing  draught,  fitted  to  dull  or  deaden  the 
sense  of  pain,  but  he  waved  it  away ;  he 
would  do  nothing  that  might  lull  the  senses, 
but  might  at  the  same  time  impair  the  full, 
clear,  mental  consciousness.     The  clothing  of 

*  MaU.  xxvii.  35-37  ;  John  xix.  20-22 ;  Luke  xxiii.  23-43. 


196  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

the  criminal  was  in  all  sucli  instances  a  legal 
perquisite  of  the  executioners,  and  the  sol- 
diers proceeded  to  divide  it  among  them. 
The  other  parts  of  his  outer  raiment  they 
found  it  comparatively  easy  to  divide  ;  but 
when  they  came  to  his  inner  coat,  finding  it 
of  somewhat  unusual  texture,  woven  from  the 
top  throughout — it  may  have  been  his  mother's 
workmanship,  or  the  gift  of  some  of  those 
kind  women  who  had  ministered  to  his  wants 
and  comforts — they  found  no  way  of  disposing 
of  it  so  easy  as  to  cast  lots  among  them  whose 
it  should  be,  fulfilling  thus,  but  all  uncon- 
sciously, that  Scripture,  which,  apart  from 
this  manner  of  disposal  of  the  clothing,  we 
might  not  well  have  understood  how  it  could 
be  verified — "  They  parted  my  raiment  among 
them,  and  for  my  vesture  they  did  cast  lots." 
Pilate's  last  act  that  morning,  after  he  had 
given  up  Jesus  to  be  crucified,  was  to  have 
the  ground  of  his  sentence  declared  in  a  writ- 
ing which  he  directed  should  be  placed  con- 
spicuously upon  the  cross  above  his  head.  To 
secure  that  this  writing  should  be  seen  and 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  197 

fead  of  all  men,  Pilate  further  orclered  that 
it  should  be  written  in  Greek,  and  Latin,  and 
Hebrew,  the  three  chief  languages  of  the 
time.  All  the  four  evangelists  record  what 
this  writing  or  superscription  was,  yet  in  each 
the  words  of  which  it  was  composed  are  dif- 
ferently reported.  No  two  of  them  agree  as 
to  the  precise  terms  of  the  title,  though  all 
of  them  are  perfectly  at  one  as  to  its  meaning 
and  intent.  It  does  not  in  the  least  surprise 
us  when  four  different  narrators  of  some 
spoken,  and  it  may  be  lengthened  discourse, 
vary  here  and  there  in  the  exact  words  im- 
puted to  the  speaker.  It  is  somewhat  differ- 
ent when  it  is  a  short  written  public  docu- 
ment, like  that  placed  over  the  Saviour's 
head  on  this  occasion,  the  contents  of  which 
are  given.  Here  we  might  naturally  have 
expected  that  the  A^ery  words — literatim  et 
verlatim — would  have  been  preserved.  And 
if  it  be  not  so,  in  this  case  as  well  as  in 
others  equally  if  not  more  remarkable,  such 
as  that  of  the  few  words  spoken  by  the  voice 
from  heaven  at  the  time  of  the  Saviour's  bap- 


198  THE    PENITENT   THIEF. 

tism,  and  those  spoken  by  our  Lord  himself 
at  the  institution  of  his  own  Supper, — if  it 
be  the  general  sense,  and  not  the  exact  words 
which  the  sacred  writers  present  to  us,  is 
there  no  warning  in  this  against  the  expecta- 
tion of  finding  a  minute  and  literal  exactness 
everywhere  in  the  gospel  narrative  ?  no 
warning  against  our  treating  that  narrative 
as  if  such  kind  of  exactness  had  been  in- 
tended, and  is  to  be  found  therein  ? 

The  sight  of  this  title,  posted  up  so  promi- 
nently above  the  head  of  Jesus,  annoyed  the 
Jews.  The  Chief  Priests  were  especially 
provoked  ;  nor  have  we  far  to  go  to  discover 
the  reason  of  their  provocation.  Among  the 
last  things  Pilate  said  to  them,  when  he 
brought  out  Jesus,  had  been,  "  Behold  3'our 
king  !"  And  among  the  last  things  they  said 
to  Pilate,  in  the  heat  of  their  exasperation, 
and  the  urgency  of  their  desire  to  have  Jesus 
ordered  off  to  instant  crucifixion,  was, 
"  Away,  away  with  him  !  crucify  him  !  tve 
have  no  Jcing  hut  Ccesar" — this  man  is  not 
only  a  false  pretender,  but  he  and  all  others 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  191) 

except  Cuesar  are  traitors  who  make  any  such 
pretension.  Thus,  in  that  unguarded  hour, 
did  they  absolutely  renounce  all  desire  or 
hope  of  having  a  king  of  their  own.  Pilate 
took  them  at  their  word,  and  put  over  Christ's 
head  such  a  title  as  implied  that  any  one 
claiming  to  be  king  of  the  Jews  might,  on 
that  ground  alone,  whatever  his  rights  and 
claims — on  the  ground  simply  of  the  alle- 
giance which  the  Jews  owed,  and  which  the 
Chief  Priests  had  avowed,  to  the  Roman 
Emperor — be  justly  condemned  to  death. 
When  they  looked  at  that  legal  declaration 
of  his  crime  placed  above  Christ's  head,  and 
thought  of  all  that  it  implied,  the  Chief 
Priests  hurried  back  to  Pilate,  and  asked  him 
to  make  a  modification  of  it,  which  should 
leave  it  open  that  there  might  be  another 
king  of  the  Jew^s  besides  Coesar.  "  Write 
not,"  they  said  to  Pilate,  "  The  King  of  the 
Jews  ;  but  that  he  said,  I  am  King  of  the 
Jews."  Let  it  be  made  patent,  that  it  was 
as  an  illegitimate  claimant  that  he  was  put  to 
death.     In  ill  humor  with  himself,  in  w^orsQ 


200  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

humor  with  them,  Pilate  is  in  no  mood  to 
listen  to  their  proposal.  He  will  hold  them 
tightly  to  their  own  denial  and  disavowal  of 
any  king  but  Csesar  ;  and  so,  with  a  somewhat 
sharp  and  surly  decisiveness,  he  dismisses 
them  by  saying,  "  What  I  have  written,  I 
have  written." 

Meanwhile,  the  soldiers  have  completed 
their  cruel  work.  It  was  when  in  their  hands, 
or  soon  after,  that  Jesus  said,  "  Father,  for- 
give them,  for  they  know  not  what  they  do." 
Such  rough  handling  as  that  to  which  our 
Lord  had  been  subjected,  such  acute  bodily 
suffering  as  it  had  inflicted,  have  a  strong 
tendency  to  irritate,  and  to  render  the  suf- 
ferer indifferent  to  everything  beyond  his  own 
injuries  and  pains.  But  how  far  above  this 
does  Jesus  rise  ?  No  murmuring;  no  threaten- 
ing ;  no  accusation  ;  no  lament ;  no  cry  for 
help  ;  no  invoking  of  vengeance  ;  no  care  for, 
or  thought  of  self;  no  obtruding  of  his  own 
forgiveness.  It  is  not,  /  forgive  you ;  but, 
*'  Father,  forgive  them."  No  sidelong  glance 
even  at  his   own  wrongs  and   sufferings,  in 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  201 

stating  for  what  the  forgiveness  is  solicited. 
"  They  know  not  what  they  do  ;"  in  this  tiim- 
ple  and  suhhme  petition,  not  the  slightest, 
most  shadowy  trace  of  self-consideration.  It 
is  from  a  heart  occupied  with  thought  for 
others,  and  not  with  its  own  woes  ;  it  is  out 
of  the  depths  of  an  infinite  love  and  pity, 
which  no  waters  can  quench,  that  there  comes 
forth  the  purest  and  highest  petition  for  mercy 
that  ever  ascended  to  the  Father  of  mercies 
in  the  heavens.  It  is  from  the  lips  of  a 
Brother-Man  that  this  petition  comes,  yet 
from  One  who  can  speak  to  God  as  to  his  own 
Father.  It  is  from  Jesus  on  the  cross  it 
comes ;  from  him  who  submits  to  all  the  shame 
and  agony  of  crucifixion,  that  as  the  Lamb 
that  once  w^as  slain  for  us,  he  might  earn,  as 
it  were,  the  right  thus  to  pray,  and  furnish 
himself  with  a  plea  in  praying,  such  as  none 
but  he  possesseth  and  can  emj^loy.  As  a 
Prophet,  he  had  spoken  to  the  daughters  of 
Jerusalem  by  the  way;  as  tlie  great  High 
Priest,  he  intercedes  for  his  crucifiers  from 
the  cross. 


202  THE    PENITENT   THIEF. 

Nor  are  we  to  confine  that  intercession  to 
those  for  whom  in  the  first  instance  it  was 
exerted.  Wide  over  the  whole  rans-e  of  sin- 
ful  humanity  does  that  prayer  of  our  Re- 
deemer extend.  For  every  sinner  of  our 
race,  if  it  be  true  of  him  that  he  knew  not 
what  he  did,  that  Prayer  of  Jesus  goes  up  to 
the  throne  of  mercy.  It  was  in  comparative 
ignorance  that  those  soldiers  and  those  Jews 
crucified  Jesus.  Had  they  known  what  they 
did,  we  have  an  apostle's  testimony  for  believ- 
ing they  would  not  have  crucified  the  Lord 
of  glory.  But  their  ignorance  did  not  take 
away  their  guilt.  Had  it  done  so,  there  had 
been  no  need  of  an  intercessor  in  their  behalf. 
It  was  with  wicked  hands  they  did  that  deed. 
Nor  did  their  ignorance  in  any  way  entitle 
them  to  forgiveness ;  then  might  it  have  been 
left  to  the  Father  to  deal  with  tliem  without 
any  intercession  of  the  Son.  But  their  ignor- 
ance brought  them  and  their  doings  within 
the  pale  of  that  Divine  mercy  for  which  the 
prayer  of  the  great  Mediator  was  presented. 
How  far  wo  are  entitled  to  carry  this  idea,  I 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  203 

shall  not  presume  to  say.  Was  it  because  of 
that  element — the  element  of  an  imperfect 
knowledsre  of  what  was  clone — that  for  the 
transgression  of  man  a  Saviour  and  a  sacrifice 
were  provided, — not  provided  for  the  sin  of 
fallen  angels,  of  whom  it  could  not,  in  the 
same  sense,  be  said  that  they  knew  not  what 
they  did  ?  Is  it  to  that  degree  in  which  a 
partial  ignorance  of  what  we  do,  prevails — 
that  ignorance  not  being  of  itself  entirely  our 
own  fault — that  our  transgression  comes  with- 
in the  scope  and  power  of  the  intercession  of 
the  Redeemer?  To  questions  such  as  these 
we  venture  no  reply.  Only  let  us  remember 
that  sins  rise  in  magnitude  as  they  are  com- 
mitted against  light,  and  that  the  clearer  and 
fuller  that  light  is,  and  the  greater  and  more 
determined  and  obstinate  our  resistance  to  it, 
the  nearer  we  approach  to  that  condition 
which  the  apostle  had  in  his  eye  when  he 
wrote  these  words  of  warning :  "  For  it  is  im- 
possible for  those  who  were  once  enlightened, 
and  have  tasted  of  the  heavenly  gift,  and  were 
made  partakers  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  have 


204  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

tasted  the  good  word  of  God,  and  the  powers 
of  the  world  to  come,  if  they  shall  fall  away, 
to  ren(3w  them  again  unto  repentance,  seeing 
they  crucify  to  themselves  the  Son  of  God 
afresh,  and  put  him  to  an  open  shame ;  for  if 
we  sin  wilfully  after  we  have  received  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  there  remaineth  no 
more  sacrifice  for  sins,  but  a  certain  fearful 
looking  for  of  judgment  and  fiery  indignation, 
which  shall  devour  the  adversaries." 

Their  cruel  work  completed,  the  soldiers  sit 
down  before  the  cross  to  ^vatch.  Behind  them 
the  people  stand  beholding.  There  is  a  mo- 
mentary stillness.  It  is  broken  by  some  pass- 
ers by — for  the  cross  was  raised  near  some 
public  thoroughfare — who,  stopping  for  a  mo- 
ment as  they  pass,  look  up,  and  wag  their 
heads  at  Jesus,  saying  contemptuously  to  hirn, 
"  Ah  !  thou  that  destroyest  the  Temple,  and 
buildest  it  in  three  days,  save  thyself!  If 
thou  be  the  Son  of  God,  come  down  from  the 
cross."  That  ribald  speech  strikes  the  key- 
note for  other  like  fiendish  taunts  and  gibes. 
The  Chief  Priests,  the  scribes,  the  elders — 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  205 

their  dignity  forgotten — hasten  to  join  the 
mockery  ;  to  deaden  perhaps  some  unwelcome 
voices  rising  within  their  hearts.  They  do 
not  act,  however,  like  the  honest  common 
people,  who  in  their  passing  by  look  up  at  or 
speak  directly  to  Jesus, — they  do  not,  they 
dare  not.  They  stand  repeating,  as  Mark 
tells  us,  among  themselves  ;  saying  of  him,  not 
to  him,  "  He  saved  others,  himself  he  cannot 
save ;  let  him  save  himself  if  he  be  the  Christ, 
the  chosen  of  God.  If  he  be  the  Kino;  of 
Israel,  let  him  come  down  from  the  cross,  and 
we  will  believe  him.  lie  trusted  in  God 
(strange  that  they  should  thus  blasphemously 
use  the  very  words  of  the  twenty-second 
Psalm),  let  him  deliver  him  now  if  he  will 
have  him,  for  he  said,  I  am  the  Son  of  God." 
The  Roman  soldiers  get  excited  by  the  talk 
they  hear  going  on  around.  They  rise,  and 
they  offer  him  some  vinegar  to  drink,  repeat- 
ing one  of  the  current  taunts,  till  at  last  one 
of  the  malefactors,  hanging  on  the  cross  beside 
him,  does  the  same. 

Strange,  certainly,  that  among  those  who 


206  THE    PENITENT    THIEF 

rail  at  Josus  at  such  a  time,  one  of  those  cru- 
cified along  with  him  should  he  numbered. 
Those  brought  out  to  share  together  the  shame 
and  agony  of  a  public  execution,  have  gen- 
erally looked  on  each  other  with  a  kindly  and 
indulgent  eye.  Outcasts  from  the  world's 
sympathy,  they  have  drawn  largely  upon  the 
sympathy  of  one  another.  Since  they  were 
to  die  thus  together,  they  have  desired  to  die 
at  peace.  Many  an  old,  deep  grudge  has 
been  buried  at  the  gallows-foot.  But  here, 
where  there  is  nothing  to  be  mutually  forgot- 
ten, nothing  to  be  forgiven,  nothing  whatever 
to  check  the  operation  of  that  common  law  by 
which  community  in  suffering  begets  sym- 
pathy ;  here,  instead  of  sj^mpathy,  there  is 
scorn  ;  instead  of  pity,  reproach.  What  called 
forth  such  feelings,  at  such  a  time,  and  from 
such  a  quarter  ?  In  part  it  may  have  been 
due  to  the  circumstance  that  it  was  upon 
Jesus  that  the  main  burden  of  the  public  re- 
proach was  flung.  Bad  men  like  to  join  with 
others  in  blaming  those  who  either  are,  or  are 
supposed  to  ])e,  worse  men  than  themselves. 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  207 

A.ncl  SO  it  may  have  brought  something'  like 
relief,  may  even  have  ministered  something 
like  gratification  to  this  man  to  find  that  when 
brought  out  for  execution^  the  tide  of  public 
indignation  directed  itself  so  exclusively 
against  Jesus — by  making  so  much  more  of 
whose  criminality,  he  thinks  to  make  so  much 
less  of  his  own.  Or  is  it  the  spirit  of  the 
religious  scofFer  that  vents  here  its  expiring 
breath  ?  All  he  sees,  and  all  he  hears — those 
pouting  lips,  those  wagging  heads,  those  up- 
braiding speeches — tell  him  what  it  was  in. 
Jesus  that  had  kindled  such  enmity  against 
him,  and  too  thoroughly  does  he  go  in  with 
that  spirit  which  is  rife  around  the  cross,  not 
to  join  in  the  expression  of  it,  and  so  whilst 
others  are  railing  at  Jesus,  he  too  will  rail.  It 
is  difficult  to  give  any  more  satisfactory  ex- 
planation of  his  conduct,  difficult  in  any  case 
like  this  to  fathom  the  depths  even  of  a  single 
human  spirit ;  but  explain  it  as  you  may,  it 
was  one  drop  added  to  the  cup  of  bitterness 
which  our  Lord  that  day  took  into  his  hands, 
and  drunk  to  the  very  dregs,  that  not  only 


208  THE    PENITENT   THIEF. 

were  his  enemies  permitted  to  do  with  him 
what  they  w^ould,  but  the  very  criminal  who 
is  crucified  by  his  side,  deems  himself  entitled 
to  cast  such  reproachful  sayings  in  his  teeth. 
But  he  is  not  suffered  to  rail  at  Jesus  unre- 
buked,  and  the  rebuke  comes  most  appro- 
priately from  his  brother  malefactor,  who 
turning  upon  him  says,  "  Dost  not  thou  fear 
God,  seeing  thou  art  in  the  same  condemna- 
tion ?"  "  Dost  not  thou  fear  God  ?" — he  does 
not  need  to  say,  Dost  thou  not  fear  man  ?  for 
man  has  already  done  all  that  man  can  do. 
But,  Dost  not  thou  fear  God  ?  He  knows 
then  that  there  is  a  God  to  fear,  a  God  before 
whose  bar  he  and  his  brother  sufferer  are 
soon  to  appear;  a  God  to  whom  they  shall 
have  to  give  account,  not  only  for  every  evil 
action  that  in  their  jDast  lives  the}'  have  done, 
but  for  every  idle  word  that  in  dying  they 
shall  speak.  He  knows  it  now,  he  feels  it 
now, — had  he  known  and  felt  it  sooner,  it 
might  haA^e  saved  him  from  hanging  on  that 
cross, — that  over  and  above  the  condemnation 
of  man  which   he  had  so  lightly  thought  of, 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  209 

and  so  fearlessly  had  braved,  there  is  another 
and  weightier  condemnation,  even  that  of  the 
great  God,  into  whose  hands,  as  a  God  of 
judgment,  it  is  a  fearful  thing  for  the  impeni- 
tent to  fall. 

"  And  we  indeed  justly."  No  questioning 
of  the  proof,  no  quarrelling  with  the  law,  no 
reproaching  of  the  judge.  He  neither  thinks 
that  his  crime  was  less  heinous  than  the  law 
made  it,  nor  his  punishment  greater  than  the 
crime  deserved.  Nor  do  you  hear  from  this 
man's  lips  what  you  so  often  hear  from  men 
placed  in  like  circumstances,  the  complaint 
that  he  had  been  taken,  and  he  must  die, 
whilst  so  many  others,  greater  criminals  than 
himself,  are  suffered  to  go  at  large  unpun- 
ished. At  once  and  unreservedly  he  acknow- 
ledges the  justice  of  the  sentence,  and  in  so 
doing,  shows  a  spirit  penetrated  with  a  sense 
of  guilt.  And  not  only  is  he  thoroughly  con- 
vinced of  his  own  guilt,  he  is  as  thoroughly 
convinced  of  Christ's  innocence.  "We  indeed 
justly" — for  we  receive  the  due  reward  of  our 
deeds — "  but   this    man   hath   done   nothing 


210  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

amiss."  Little  as  he  may  have  seen  or 
known  before  of  Jesus,  what  he  had  wit- 
nessed had  entirely  convinced  him  that  His 
was  a  case  of  unmerited  and  unprovoked  per- 
secution ;  that  he  was  an  innocent  man  whom 
these  Jews,  to  gratify  their  own  spleen,  to 
avenge  themselves  in  their  own  ignoble  quar- 
rel with  him,  were  hounding  to  the  death. 

But  he  goes  much  further  than  to  give  ex- 
pression merely  to  his  conviction  of  Christ's 
innocence, — and  it  is  here  we  touch  upon  the 
spiritual  marvels  of  this  extraordinary  inci- 
dent. Turning  from  speaking  to  his  brother 
malefactor,  fixing  his  eye  upon,  and  address- 
ing himself  to  Jesus,  as  he  hangs  upon  the 
neighboring  cross,  he  says,  "  Lord,  remember 
me  when  thou  comest  into  thy  kingdom.'* 
How  came  he,  at  such  a  time,  and  in  such 
circumstances,  to  call  Jesus  Lord  ?  how  came 
he  to  believe  in  the  coming  of  his  kingdom  ? 
It  is  going  the  utmost  length  to  which  suppo- 
sition can  be  carried,  to  imagine  that  he  had 
never  met  with  Jesus  till  he  had  met  him 
that  morning  to  be  led  out  in  company  with 


THE    PEMTENT    THIEF.  211 

him  to  Calvary.  He  saw  the  daughters  of 
Jerusalem  weeping  by  the  way  ;  he  heard 
those  words  of  Jesus  which  told  of  the  speak- 
er's having  power  to  withdraw  the  veil  which 
hides  the  future ;  he  had  seen  and  read  the 
title  nailed  above  the  Saviour's  head,  pro- 
claiming him  to  be  the  King  of  the  Jews ; 
from  the  lips  of  the  passers-by,  of  the  Chief 
Priests,  the  elders,  the  soldiers,  he  had  gath- 
ered that  this  Jesus,  now  dying  by  his  side, 
had  saved  others  from  that  very  death  he  is 
himself  about  to  die,  had  professed  a  supreme 
trust  in  God,  had  claimed  to  be  the  Christ, 
the  Chosen,  the  Son  of  God,  and  he  had  seen 
and  heard  enough  to  satisfy  him  that  all 
which  Jesus  had  claimed  to  be  he  truly  was. 
Such  were  some  of  the  materials  put  by  Di- 
vine Providence  into  this  man's  hands  whereon 
to  build  his  faith ;  such  the  broken  fragments 
of  the  truth  loosely  scattered  in  his  way.  He 
takes  them  up,  collects,  combines ;  the  En- 
lightening Spirit  shines  upon  the  evidence 
thus  afforded,  shines  in  upon  his  quickened 
soul;   and    there    brightly    dawns    upon    his 


212  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

spirit  the  sublime  belief  that  in  that  strange 
sufferer  by  his  side  he  sees  the  long-promised 
Messiah,  the  Saviour  of  mankind,  the  Son  and 
equal  of  the  Father,  who  now,  at  the  very 
time  that  his  mind  has  opened  to  a  sense  of 
his  great  iniquity,  and  he  stands  trembling  on 
the  brink  of  eternit}^,  reveals  himself  as  so 
near  at  hand,  so  easy  of  access.  His  faith, 
thus  quickly  formed,  goes  forth  into  instant 
exercise,  and,  turning  to  Jesus,  he  breathes 
into  his  convenient  ear  the  simple  but  ardent 
prayer,  "  Lord,  remember  me  when  thou  com- 
est  into  thy  kingdom." 

The  hostile  multitude  around  are  looking 
forward  to  Christ's  approaching  death,  as  to 
that  decisive  event  which  shall  at  once,  and 
for  ever,  scatter  to  the  winds  all  the  idle 
rumors  that  have  been  rife  about  him;  all 
his  vain  pretensions  to  the  Messiahship.  The 
faith  of  Christ's  own  immediate  followers  is 
ready  to  give  way  before  that  same  event ; 
they  bury  it  in  his  grave,  and  have  only  to 
say  of  him  afterwards,  "  We  hoped  that  it 
had   been   he    that    should    have   redeemed 


THE    PENITENT   THIEF.  213 

Israel."  Yet  here  amid  the  triumph  of  ene- 
mies, and  the  failure  of  the  faith  of  friends, 
is  one  who,  conquering  all  the  difficulties  that 
sense  opposes  to  its  recognition,  discerns, 
even  through  the  dark  envelope  which  covers 
it,  the  hidden  glory  of  the  Redeemer,  and 
openly  hails  him  as  his  Lord  and  King.  Mar- 
vellous, indeed,  the  faith  in  our  Lord's  di- 
vinity which  sprung  up  so  suddenly  in  such 
an  unlikely  region;  which  shone  out  so 
brightly  in  the  very  midnight  of  the  world's 
unbelief.  Are  we  wrong  in  saying  that,  at 
the  particular  moment  when  that  testimony 
to  Christ's  divinity  was  borne,  there  was  not 
another  full  believer  in  that  divinity  but  this 
dying  thief  ?  If  so,  was  it  not  a  fitting  thing, 
that  he  who  was  never  to  be  left  without  a 
witness,  now  when  there  was  but  one  witness 
left,  should  have  had  this  solitary  testimony 
given  to  his  divinity  at  the  very  time  when  it 
was  passing  into  almost  total  eclipse;  so 
nearly  wholly  shrouded  from  mortal  vision  ? 
There  were  many  to  call  him  Lord  when  he 
rose  triumphant  from  the  tomb ;  there  is  but 


214  THE    PENITENT   THIEF. 

one  to  call  him  Lord  as  lie  hangs  d3dng  on  the 
cross. 

But  let  us  look  upon  the  prayer  of  the 
dying  thief  not  only  as  a  public  testimony  to 
the  kingly  character  and  prerogative  of  Jesus, 
but  as  the  prayer  of  individual,  appropriating 
faith;  the  earnest,  hopeful,  trustful  applica- 
tion of  a  dying  sinner  to  a  dying  Saviour. 
His  ideas  of  Christ's  character  and  office 
may  have  been  obscure ;  the  nature  of  that 
kingdom  into  possession  of  which  he  was 
about  to  enter,  he  may  have  but  imperfectly 
understood.  He  knew  it,  however,  to  be  a 
spiritual  kingdom;  he  felt  that  individually 
he  had  forfeited  his  right  of  admission  to  its 
privileges  and  its  joys ;  he  believed  that  it 
lay  with  Jesus  to  admit  him  into  that  king- 
dom. Not  with  a  spirit  void  of  apprehension, 
may  he  have  made  his  last  appeal.  It  may 
have  seemed  to  him  a  very  doubtful  tiling, 
whether,  when  relieved  from  the  sharp  pains 
of  (jrucifixion,  the  suffering  over,  and  the 
throne  of  the  kingdom  reached,  Jesus  would 
think  of  him  amid  the  splendors  and  the  joys 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  215 

of  his  new  kingly  state.  Doubts  of  a  kindred 
character  have  often  haunted  the  hearts  of 
the  penitent,  the  hearts  of  the  best  and  the 
holiest ;  but  there  were  tAvo  things  of  which 
he  had  no  doubt,  that  Jesus  could  save  him  if 
he  would,  and  if  he  did  not,  he  should  perish. 
And  it  is  out  of  these  two  simple  elements 
that  genuine  faith  is  always  formed,  a  deep, 
pervading,  subduing  consciousness  of  our  un- 
worthiness,  a  simple  and  entire  trust  in 
Christ. 

It  has  been  often  and  well  said,  that  whilst 
this  one  instance  of  faith  in  Jesus  formed  at 
the  eleventh  hour  is  recorded  in  the  New 
Testament,  in  order  that  none,  even  to  the 
last  moment  of  their  being,  should  despair, — 
there  is  but  this  one  instance,  that  none  may 
presume  upon  a  death-bod  repentance.  And 
even  this  instance  teaches  most  impressively 
that  the  faith  which  justifies  always  sanc- 
tifies ;  that  the  faith  which  brings  forgiveness 
and  opens  the  gates  of  Paradise  to  the  dying 
sinner  carries  with  it  a  renovating  power; 
that  the  faith  which  conveys  the  title,  works 


216  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

at  the  same  time  the  meetness  foi  the  hea- 
venly inheritance.  Let  a  man  die  that  hour 
in  which  he  truly  and  cordially  belicA'^es,  that 
hour  his  passage  into  the  heavenly  kingdom 
is  made  secure ;  hut  let  a  window  be  opened 
that  hour  into  his  soul,  let  us  see  into  all  the 
secrets  thereof,  and  we  shall  discover  that 
morally  and  spiritually  there  has  been  a 
change  in  inward  character  corresponding  to 
the  change  in  legal  standing  or  relationship 
with  God.  It  was  so  with  this  dying  thief. 
True,  we  have  but  a  short  period  of  his  life 
before  us,  and  in  that  period  only  two  short 
sayings  to  go  upon;  happily,  however,  say- 
ings of  such  a  kind,  and  spoken  in  such  cir- 
cumstances, as  to  preclude  all  doubt  of  their 
entire  honesty  and  truthfulness  ;  and  what  do 
they  reveal  of  the  condition  of  that  man's 
mind  and  heart  ?  What  tenderness  of  con- 
science is  here  ;  what  deep  reverence  for  God; 
what  devout  submission  to  the  divine  will ; 
what  entire  reUnquishment  of  all  personal 
grounds  of  confidence  before  God ;  what  a 
vivid  realizing  of  the  world  of  spirits ;  what 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  217 

a  humble  trust  in  Jesus ;  what  a  zeal  for  the 
Saviour's  honor ;  what  an  indignation  at  the 
unworthy  treatment  he  was  receiving?  May 
we  not  take  that  catalogue  of  the  fruits  of 
genuine  repentance  which  an  apostle  has 
drawn  up  for  us,  and  applying  it  here,  say  of 
this  man's  repentance, — Behold  what  careful- 
ness it  wrought  in  him ;  yea,  what  clearing 
of  himself;  yea,  what  indignation;  yea,  what 
fear ;  yea,  what  vehement  desire ;  yea,  what 
zeal ;  yea,  what  revenge !  In  all  things  he 
approved  himself  to  be  a  changed  man,  in  the 
desires  and  dispositions  and  purposes  of  his 
heart.  The  belief  has  been  expressed,  that 
in  all  the  earth  there  was  not  at  that  particu- 
lar moment  such  a  believer  in  the  Lord's 
divinity  as  he ;  would  it  be  going  too  far  to 
couple  with  that  belief  this  other,  that  in  all 
the  earth,  and  at  that  moment,  there  was  not 
another  man  inwardly  riper  and  readier  for 
entrance  into  Paradise  ? 

*'  Lord,  remember  me  when  thou  comest 
into  thy  kingdom."  Loud  and  angry  voices 
have  for  hours  been  ringing  in  the  vexed  ear 

10 


218  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

of  Jesus, — voices  whose  blasphemy  and  inhu- 
manity wounded  him  far  more  than  the  mere 
personal  antipathy  they  breathed.  Amid 
these  harsh  and  grating  sounds,  how  new,  how 
welcome,  how  grateful,  this  soft  and  gentle 
utterance  of  desire,  and  trust,  and  love  !  It 
dropped  like  a  cordial  upon  the  fainting  spirit 
of  our  Lord,  the  only  balm  that  earth  came 
forth  to  lay  upon  his  wounded  spirit.  Let 
us,  too,  be  grateful  for  that  one  soothing  word 
addressed  to  the  dying  Jesus,  and  wherever 
the  gospel  is  declared  let  these  words  which 
that  man  spake  be  repeated  in  memorial  of 
him. 

"  Lord,  remember  me  when  thou  comest 
into  thy  kingdom."  He  will  not  ask  to  be 
remembered  no2v ;  he  will  not  break  in  upon 
this  season  of  his  Lord's  bitter  anguish.  He 
only  asks  that,  when  the  sharp  pains  of  his 
passion  shall  be  over,  the  passage  made,  and 
the  throne  of  the  kingdom  won,  Jesus  will,  in 
his  great  mercy,  then  think  of  him.  Jesus 
will  let  him  know  that  he  does  not  need  to 
wait  so  long ;  he  will  let  him  know  that  the 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  219 

Son  of  man  hath  power,  even  on  earth,  to 
forgive  sin  ;  that  the  hour  never  cometh  when 
his  ear  is  so  heavy  that  it  can  not  hear,  his 
hand  so  shortened  that  it  can  not  save  ;  and 
the  prayer  has  scarce  been  offered  when  the 
answer  comes,  "  Verily,  I  say  unto  thee,  To- 
day shalt  thou  be  with  me  in  paradise." 

The  lips  may  have  trembled  that  spake 
these  words  ;  soft  and  low  may  have  been  the 
tone  in  which  they  were  uttered  ;  but  they 
were  words  of  power, — words  which  only  one 
Being  who  ever  wore  human  form,  could  liaA^e 
spoken.  His  divinity  is  acknowledged  :  the 
moment  it  is  so,  it  breaks  forth  into  bright 
and  beautiful  manifestation.  The  hidden  glory 
bursts  throuiih  the  dark  cloud  tliat  veiled  it, 
and,  in  all  his  omnipotence  to  save,  Jesus 
stands  revealed.  What  a  rebuke  to  his  cru- 
cifiers  !  They  may  strip  his  mortal  body  of 
its  outward  raiment,  which  these  soldiers  may 
divide  among  them  as  they  please  ;  his  hu- 
man soul  they  may  strip  of  its  outer  garment 
of  the  flesh,  and  send  it  forth  unclothed  into 
the  world  of  spirits.     But  his  kingly  right  to 


220  THE    PENITENT   THIEF. 

dispense  the  royal  gift  of  pardon,  his  })ower 
to  saA^e,  can  they  strip  him  of  that  ?  Nay, 
little  as  they  know  it,  they  are  helping  to 
clothe  him  with  that  power,  at  the  very  time 
when  they  think  they  are  laying  all  his  kingly 
pretensions  in  the  dust.  He  will  not  do  what 
they  had  so  often  in  derision  asked  him  that 
day  to  do  ; — he  will  not  come  down  from  the 
cross  ; — he  will  not  give  that  proof  of  his 
divinity  ;  he  will  not  put  forth  his  almighty 
power  by  exerting  it  upon  the  world  of  mat- 
ter. But  on  this  very  cross  he  will  give  a 
higher  proof  of  his  divinity  :  he  will  exert 
that  power,  not  over  the  world  of  matter,  but 
over  the  world  of  spirits,  by  stretching  forth 
his  hand  and  delivering  a  soul  from  death, 
and  carrying  it  with  him  that  day  into  para- 
dise. 

"  Verily  I  say  unto  thee,  To-day  shalt  thou 
be  with  me  in  paradise."  Jesus  would  not 
rise  from  the  sepulchre  alone  ;  he  would  have 
others  rise  along  with  him.  And  so,  even  as 
he  dies,  the  earthquake  does  its  allotted  work, 
work  so  strange  for  an  earthquake  to  do, — it 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  221 

opens  not  a  new  grave  for  the  living,  it  opens 
the  old  graves  of  the  dead ;  and  as  the  third 
morning  dawns,  from  the  opened  graves  the 
bodies  of  the  saints  arise  with  the  rising  body 
of  the  Lord, — types  and  pledges  of  the  gen- 
eral resurrection  of  the  dead,  verifying,  by 
their  appearance  in  the  Holy  City,  the  words 
of  ancient  prophecy  :  "  Thy  dead  men  shall 
live,  together  with  my  dead  body  shall  they 
arise.  Awake  and  sing,  ye  that  dwell  in  the 
dust ;  for  thy  dew  is  as  the  dew  of  herbs, 
and  the  earth  shall  cast  out  her  dead."  And 
as  Jesus  would  not  rise  from  the  sepulchre 
alone,  so  neither  will  he  enter  Paradise  alone. 
He  will  carry  one  companion  spirit  with  him 
to  the  place  of  the  blessed  ;  thus  early  giving 
proof  of  his  having  died  upon  that  cross  that 
others  through  his  death  might  live,  and  live 
for  ever.  See,  then,  in  the  ransomed  spirit 
borne  that  day  to  Paradise,  the  primal  trophy 
of  the  power  of  the  uplifted  cross  of  Jesus  ! 
What  saved  this  penitent  thief  ?  No  water  of 
baptism  was  ever  sprinkled  upon  him ;  at  no 
table  of  communion  did  he  ever  sit;  of  the 


222  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

virtue  said  to  lie  in  sacramental  rites  he  knew 
nothing.  It  was  a  simple  believing  look  of  a 
dying  sinner  upon  a  dying  Saviour  that  did  it. 
And  that  sight  has  lost  nothing  of  its  power. 
Too  many,  alas  !  have  passed,  are  still  passing 
by  that  spectacle  of  Jesus  upon  the  cross ; 
going,  one  to  his  farm,  another  to  his  mer- 
chandise, and  not  suffering  it  to  make  its  due 
impression  on  their  hearts ;  but  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  the  human  race — we  bless 
God  for  this — have  gazed  upon  it  with  a  look 
kindred  to  that  of  the  dying  thief,  and  have 
felt  it  exert  upon  them  a  kindred  power. 
Around  it,  once  more,  let  me  ask  you  all  to 
gather.  Many  here,  I  trust,  as  they  look  at 
it,  can  say,  with  adoring  gratitude.  He  loved 
me;  he  gave  himself  for  me  ;  he  was  wounded 
for  my  transgression,  he  was  bruised  for  mine 
iniquity ;  he  is  all  my  salvation,  he  is  all  my 
desire.  Some  may  not  be  able  to  go  so  far ; 
yet  there  is  one  step  that  all  of  us,  who  are  in 
any  degree  alive  to  our  obligations  to  redeem- 
ing love,  can  take — one  prayer  that  we  all 
may  offer  ;   and  surely,  if  that  petition  got  so 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  223 

ready  audience  when  addressed  to  Jesus  in 
the  midst  of  his  dying  agonies,  with  certain 
hope  of  not  less  flivorable  audience  may  we 
take  it  up,  and  shaping  it  to  meet  our  case, 
may  say.  Now  that  thou  hast  gone  into  thy 
kingdom,  0  Lord,  remember  me. 

Yet  once  more  let  the  words  of  our  Lord 
be  repeated,  "  To-day  shalt  thou  be  with  me 
in  paradise."  But  where  this  Paradise ;  what 
this  Paradise  ?  We  can  say,  in  answer  to 
these  questions,  that  with  this  heavenly  Pa- 
radise into  which  the  redeemed  at  death  do 
enter,  the  ancient,  the  earthly  Paradise  is  not 
fit  to  be  compared.  In  the  one,  the  direct 
intercourse  with  God  was  but  occasional;  in 
the  other  it  shall  be  constant.  In  the  one, 
the  Deity  was  known  only  as  he  revealed 
himc-'elf  in  the  works  of  creation  and  in  the 
ways  of  his  providence ;  in  the  other,  it  will 
be  as  the  God  of  our  redemption,  the  God 
and  Father  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus, 
that  he  will  be  recognised,  adored,  obeyed — 
all  the  higher  moral  attributes  of  his  nature 
shining  forth  in  harmonious   and   illustrious 


224  THE    PENITENT   THIEF. 

display.  Into  the  earthlj^  Paradise  the 
Tempter  entered ;  from  the  heavenly  he  will 
be  shut  out.  From  the  earthly  Paradise  sad 
exiles  once  were  driven ;  from  the  heavenly 
we  shall  go  no  more  out  for  ever.  Still,  how- 
ever, after  all  such  imperfect  and  unsatisfying 
comparisons,  the  questions  return  upon  us, 
Where,  and  what  is  this  Paradise  of  the  re- 
deemed ?  Our  simplest  and  our  best  an- 
swers to  those  questions  perhaps  are  these — 
Where  is  Paradise?  wherever  Jesus  is.  What 
is  Paradise  ?  to  be  for  ever  with,  and  to  be 
fully  like,  our  Lord.  We  know— for  God  has 
told  us  so,  of  that  Paradise  of  the  redeemed — 
that  it  is  a  land  of  perfect  light ;  the  day  has 
dawned  there ;  the  shadows  have  for  ever 
fled  away.  It  is  a  land  of  perfect  blessed- 
ness ;  no  tears  fall  there ;  no  sighs  rise 
there ;  up  to  the  measure  of  its  capacity, 
each  spirit  filled  with  a  pure  never-ending 
joy.  It  is  a  land  of  perfect  holiness  ;  no- 
thing that  defileth  shall  enter  there,  neither 
whatsoever  loveth  or  maketh  a  lie.  But  what 
gives  to  that  land  its  light,  its  joy,  its  holi* 


THE   PENITENT    THIEF.  225 

ness  in  the  sight  of  the  redeemed  ?  it  is  the 
presence  of  Jesus.  If  there  be  no  night 
there,  it  is  because  the  Lamb  is  the  light  of 
that  place ;  if  there  be  no  tears  there,  it  is 
because  from  every  eye  his  hand  has  wiped 
off  every  tear.  The  holiness  that  reigneth 
there  is  a  holiness  caught  from  the  seeing  him 
as  he  is.  And  trace  the  tide  of  joy  that  cir- 
culates through  the  hosts  of  the  blessed  to  its 
fountain-head,  you  will  find  it  within  that 
throne  on  which  the  Lamb  that  once  was  slain 
is  sitting.  To  be  with  Jesus,  to  be  like  Jesus, 
to  love  and  serve  him  purely,  deeply,  unfail- 
ingly, unfalteringly — that  is  the  Christian's 
heaven. 

I  love,  says  one,  to  think  of  heaven;  and 
as  I  repeat  the  words,  they  will  find  an  echo 
in  each  Christian  heart : — 

"I  love  to  think  of  heaven  ;  its  cloudless  light, 
Its  tearless  joys,  its  recognitions,  and  its  fellowships 
Of  love  and  joy  unending;  but  when  my  mind  anticipatos 
The  sight  of  God  incarnate,  wearing  on  his  hands 
And  feet  and  side  marks  of  the  wounds 
Which  he  for  mo  on  Calvary  endured. 
All  heaven  beside  is  swallowed  up  in  this; 
And  he  who  was  my  hope  of  heaven  below 
Becomes  the  glory  of  my  heaven  above." 
10* 


226  THE    PENITENT    THIEF. 

Yet  once  again  let  the  memorable  words  ot 
our  Lord  be  repeated,  '"'  To-day  slialt  thou  be 
with  me  in  paradise."  What  a  day  to  that 
dying  man !  IIow  strange  the  contrast  be- 
tween its  opening  and  its  close,  its  morning 
and  its  ni^ht !  Its  mornino;  saw  him  a  cul- 
prit  condemned  before  the  bar  of  earthly 
judgment ;  before  evening  shadowed  the  Hill 
of  Zion,  he  stood  accepted  at  the  bar  of  hea- 
ven. The  morning  saw  him  led  out  through 
an  earthly  city's  gates  in  company  with  one 
who  was  hooted  at  by  the  crowd  that  gathered 
round  him ;  before  night  fell  upon  Jerusalem, 
the  gates  of  another  city,  even  the  heavenly, 
were  lifted  up,  and  he  went  up  through  them 
in  company  with  one  around  whom  all  the 
hosts  of  heaven  were  bowing  down,  as  he 
passed  on  to  take  his  place  beside  the  Father 
on  his  everlasting  throne.  Humblest  believer 
in  the  Saviour,  a  like  marvellous  contrast  is 
in  store  for  you.  This  hour,  it  may  be,  weak 
and  burdened,  tossing  on  the  bed  of  agony, 
in  that  darkened  chamber  of  stifled  sobs  and 
drooping  tears ;  the  next  hour,  up  and  away 


THE    PENITENT    THIEF.  227 

in  the  Paradise  of  God,  mingling  with  the 
sjDirits  of  the  just  made  perfect,  renewing 
death-broken  friendships,  gazing  on  the  un- 
veiled glories  of  the  Lamb.  Be  thou  then 
but  faithful  unto  death  ;  struggle  on  for  a  few 
more  of  those  numbered  da3^s,  or  months,  or 
years,  and  on  that  day  of  your  departure 
hence,  in  his  name  I  have  to  say  it  to 
you,  Verily,  thou  too  shalt  be  with  him  in 
Paradise. 


IX.    . 

The  last  sight  we  got  of  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved  was  when  he  and  Peter  entered 
together  into  the  Hall  of  the  High  Priest. 
Silent  and  in  the  shade,  he  escaped  the  scru- 
tiny that  his  rash  companion  drew  upon  him- 
self. Of  the  sad  scene  that  ensued,  John  was 
the  sorrowful  witness.  He  saw  the  Lord  turn 
and  look  upon  Peter ;  he  saw  Peter  turn  and 
leave  the  hall.  It  is  not  likely  that  he  fol- 
lowed him.  A  stronger  attraction  kept  him 
where  he  was.  He  waited  to  see  what  the 
issue  of  these  strange  proceedings  should  be; 
waited  till  he  heard  the  judgment  of  the  San- 
hedrim given;  waited  till  he  saw  the  weak 
and    sorely-badgered    Governor  at  last  give 

*  1  John  xix   25-27. 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      229 

way ;  waited  perhaps  till  the  preparations  for 
the  crucifixion  had  commenced.  Then  may 
he  have  gone  in  haste  into  the  city  ;  gone  to 
seek  out  those  who,  he  kneAv,  would  be  most 
interested  to  hear;  especially  to  seek  out  and 
to  comfort  her  upon  whose  wounded  heart  the 
burden  of  these  terrible  tidings  would  fall 
most  heavily.  Most  likely  it  was  from  the 
lips  of  the  beloved  disciple  that  Mary  first 
heard  that  morning  of  the  fate  which  awaited 
Jesus.  But  where  and  when  did  she  first  see 
him  ?  Not  in  the  palace  of  the  High  Priest ; 
not  in  the  Judgment  Hall  of  Pilate.  Al- 
though she  had  got  the  tidings  soon  enough 
to  be  there,  these  were  not  places  for  such  a 
visitant.  Nor  was  she  one  of  those  dauuh- 
ters  of  Jerusalem  that  lamented  and  bewailed 
him  hy  the  way.  The  first  sight  she  gets  of 
him  is  when,  mocked  by  the  soldiers,  derided 
by  the  passers-by,  insulted  by  the  Chief 
Priests,  he  hangs  upon  the  cross.  She  has 
her  own  sister  Mary  with  her,  and  that  other 
faithful  Mary  of  Magdala,  with  John  beside 
them,  making  up  that  little  group,  who,  with 


230      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

feelings   so   clifFerent   from   those  of  all   the 
others,  gaze  upon  the  scene. 

The  proyer  for  his  crucifiers  has  been 
offered.  The  penitent  thief  has  heard  the 
declaration  that  opens  to  him  that  day  the 
gates  of  Paradise,  when  the  eye  of  the  Cruci- 
fied, wandering  over  the  motley  crowd,  fixes 
upon  that  little  group  standing,  quietly  but 
sadly,  near  enough  to  be  spoken  to.  John  is 
addressing  some  word,  or  doing  some  act  of 
kindness  to  Mary.  They  are  at  least  so  close 
to  one  another,  that  though  Jesus  names 
neither,  neither  can  mistake  of  whom  and  to 
whom  he  speaks,  as,  bending  a  tender  look 
upon  them,  he  says,  "  Woman,  behold  thy 
son !"  ^'  Son,  behold  thy  mother !"  John 
acts  at  once  on  the  direction  given,  and  with- 
draws Mary  from  the  spot,  and  takes  her  to 
his  own  home  in  Jerusalem.  Amid  the  dark 
and  tumultuous,  solemn  and  awful  incidents 
of  the  crucifixion,  this  incident  has  so  much 
of  peaceful  repose  that  we  feel  tempted  to 
dwell  upon  it.  At  once,  and  very  naturally, 
it  suggests  to  us  a  review  of  the  previous  re- 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      231 

lationship  and  intercourse  between  Mary  and 
her  mysterious  Son.  We  cannot,  indeed, 
rightly  appreciate  our  Lord's  notice  of  her 
from  the  cross  without  taking  it  in  connexion 
with  that  relationship  and  intercourse. 

The  angelic  annunciation,  the  salutation  of 
Elizabeth,  the  visits  of  the  Bethlehem  shep- 
herds and  the  Eastern  Magi,  had  all  prepared 
Mary  to  see,  in  her  first-born  Son,  One  greater 
than  the  children  of  men.  All  those  say- 
ings— about  his  greatness  and  glory,  his  being 
called  the  Son  of  the  Highest,  his  sitting  upon 
the  throne  of  David  his  father,  his  reigning 
over  the  house  of  Jacob  for  ever — she  kept 
and  pondered  in  her  heart,  wondering  exceed- 
ingly what  manner  of  man  that  child  of  hers 
should  be,  in  whom  those  sayings  should  be 
fulfilled.  As  she  listened  to  all  those  prophe- 
cies of  his  future  greatness,  by  which  his 
birth  was  foretold  and  celebrated,  what  bright 
and  glowing  anticipations  must  have  filled 
Mary's  heart !  One  discordant  word  alone  at 
this  time  fell  upon  her  ear,  one  saying  differ- 
ing frcm  all  the  rest,  the  meaning  of  which 


232      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD 

she  could  not  understand.  "  This  child,"  said 
the  aged  Simeon,  as  he  took  up  the  babe  into 
his  arms  at  his  presentation  within  the  Tem- 
ple,—" this  child  is  set  for  the  fall  and  rising 
again  of  many  in  Israel,  and  for  a  sign  that 
shall  be  spoken  against.  Yea,  added  the 
aged  prophet,  as  he  looked  sadly  and  sym- 
pathizingly  at  Mary,  "  a  sword  shall  pierce 
through  thy  own  soul  also."  Was  it  to  tem- 
per her  new-born  jo}^ ;  was  it  to  teach  her  to 
mingle  some  apprehension  with  her  hopes ; 
was  it  to  prepare  and  fortify  her  for  the  actual 
future  that  lay  before  her — so  difl'erent  from 
the  imagined  one — that  these  words  were 
spoken  ?  Beyond  exciting  a  fresh  wonder 
and  perplexity,  they  could,  however,  have 
had  but  little  eifect  on  Mary  at  the  time.  She 
did  not,  she  could  not  understand  them  then; 
therefore,  wdth  those  bright  and  joj^ous  anti- 
cipations still  within  her  heart,  she  retired  to 
Nazareth.  The  child  grew,  the  Evangelist 
tells  us,  Avaxed  strong  in  spirit,  was  filled 
with  wisdom,  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him  ; 
but  beyond   that    gentleness  which    nothing 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      233 

coulc  ruffle,  that  meekness  which  nothing 
%  could  provoke,  that  wisdom  which  was  daily 
deepening  and  widening,  giving  ever  new  and 
more  wonderful,  yet  ever  natural  and  child- 
like exhibitions  of  itself,  that  dutiful  submis- 
sion to  his  reputed  parents,  that  love  to  all 
around  him  upon  earth,  that  deeper  love  to 
his  Father  in  heaven, — beyond  that  rare  and 
unexampled  assemblage  of  all  the  virtues 
and  graces  by  which  a  human  childhood  could 
be  adorned,  there  was  nothing  outwardly  to 
distinguish  him  from  any  child  of  his  own  age, 
nothing  outwardly  to  mark  him  out  as  the 
heir  of  such  a  glorious  destiny. 

Twelve  years  of  that  childhood  pass.  Je- 
sus has  been  to  Mary  so  like  what  any  other 
son  might  have  been  to  his  mother,  that,  un- 
conscious of  any  difference,  she  assumes  and 
exercises  over  him  all  ordinary  maternal 
rights.  But  now,  again,  just  as  it  was  with 
that  speech  of  Simeon  among  the  other 
prophecies  that  heralded  the  Redeemer's 
birth,  so  is  it  with  an  act  and  speech  of 
Christ   himself   among    the    quiet    incidents 


234      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

out  of  "vvhicli,  for  thirty  years,  his  life  ac 
Nazareth  was  made  up.  When  twelve  years 
old,  they  take  Jesus  up  to  Jerusalem,  the 
days  of  the  festival  are  fulfilled,  the  village 
company  to  which  Jesus  and  his  family  were 
attached,  leave  the  Holy  City  on  their  return. 
Joseph  and  Mary  never  for  a  moment  doubt 
that,  acting  with  his  accustomed  wisdom  and 
dutifulness,  their  son  will  be  with  the  other 
youths  from  Nazareth  and  its  neighborhood, 
along  with  whom  he  had  made  the  journey  up 
to  the  Holy  City.  Not  till  the  usual  resting- 
place  for  the  night  is  reached  do  they  miss 
him.  Something  must  have  happened  to  hin- 
der him  from  joining  the  company  at  Jeru- 
salem. Full  of  anxiety,  Joseph  and  Mary 
return  into  the  city.  Three  days  are  spent 
in  the  sorrowful  search.  At  last  they  find 
him,  sitting  quietly  among  the  doctors,  as  if 
the  Temple  were  his  home.  Imagine  Mary's 
feelings  at  this  sight.  No  accident,  then,  had 
happened  to  him  ;  no  restraint  had  been  laid 
upon  him.  It  had  been  voluntarily  and  de- 
liberately that  her  son   had   remained    thus 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      235 

behind  for  fom*  days  after  her  departure 
Never  before  had  Jesus  acted  in  such  a  way, 
never  said  or  done  anything  fitted  to  give 
lier  pain.  Never  before  had  she  occasion  to 
reproach  or  rebuke  him,  but  now,  in  her  sur- 
prise and  grief,  she  cannot  help  speaking  to 
him  as  she  had  never  done  before.  "  Son," 
said  she,  when  at  last  she  found  him, — 
"  Son,  why  hast  thou  dealt  thus  with  us  ? 
Thy  father  and  I  have  sought  thee  sorrow- 
ing." Now,  mark  the  Son's  reply  when 
spoken  to  as  if  he  had  been  forgetful  of  the 
duty  that  a  child  owes  to  his  parents.  Mary 
had  called  him  Son;  he  does  not  call  her 
Mother ;  he  never  does, — never  in  any  con- 
versation related  in  the  Gospels.  Mary  had 
spoken  of  Joseph  as  his  father ;  he  nowise 
recognizes  that  relations) i 'p.  The  full  con- 
sciousness of  another,  higher  Sonship  than 
that  to  Mary  has  enteied  his  youthful  heart; 
and,  under  the  inspiration  of  this  conscious- 
ness, his  only  reply  to  the  maternal  appeal  is, 
"  How  is  it  that  ye  sought  me?  wist  ye  not 
that    I   must   be   about   mv    Father's    busi- 


236      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

ness  ?" — a  very  strange  and  altogether  un- 
expected answer;  one  which,  we  are  dis- 
tinctly told,  neither  Mary  nor  Joseph  under- 
stood. It  offered  no  explanation  or  excuse 
for  his  conduct.  It  denied  all  need  for  any 
such  explanation  or  excuse.  In  the  matter 
of  his  heavenly  Father's  business,  it  repu- 
diated their  interference.  Mary  had  never 
heard  her  own  or  Joseph's  authority  over  him 
questioned  by  Jesus.  Had  this  visit  to  Jeru- 
salem weakened  in  his  heart  the  sense  of  sub- 
jection to  them  ?  Was  he  going  to  throw  it 
off?  Will  he  refuse  to  accompany  them  ? 
Must  he  still  continue  to  be  thus  engaged 
about  his  Father's  business  ?  No  !  Having 
said  thus  much,  to  teach  them  that  he  knew 
how  special  his  earthly  relationship  to  them 
was,  he  rose,  he  left  the  temple,  and  returning 
with  them  to  Nazareth,  was  subject  to  them 
as  before,  yet  not  without  having  deposited 
another  seed  of  wonder  in  Mary's  heart, — 
wonder  as  to  what  that  other  Father's  busi- 
ness was,  with  her  son's  mode  of  doing  which 
she,  as  his  mother,  must  not  interfere. 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      237 

Jesus  is,  as  before,  Mary's  dutiful  and  sub- 
missive Son.  Joseph  dies,  and  he,  who  had 
been  sharer  of  his  reputed  father's  earthly 
labors,  becomes  perhaps  the  chief  support  and 
solace  of  his  mother  in  her  widowhood. 
Eighteen  years  go  past.  Jesus  leaves  his 
home  at  Nazareth,  alone,  for  none  of  his  own 
family  believe  in  him.  He  presents  himself 
on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan,  and  asks  baptism 
at  the  hands  of  John.  The  sign  from  heaven 
is  given  ;  the  voice  from  heaven  is  heard  ;  the 
Baptist  points  to  him  as  the  Lamb  of  God. 
Phihp  hails  him  as  the  Messiah  promised  to 
the  fathers.  Nathanael  recognizes  him  as  the 
Son  of  God,  the  King  of  Israel.  All  this  is 
told  to  Mary.  A  few  weeks  later  her  Son 
returns,  and  finds  her  at  the  marriage-feast  at 
Cana ;  returns  now  with  public  vouchers  of 
his  Messiahship,  and  with  five  followers,  who 
acknowledge  him  as  their  Master.  Once 
more,  as  at  his  birth,  the  hopes  of  Mary's 
heart  rise  high.  It  is  at  the  house  of  a  Mend 
— of  a  near  relative,  it  has  been  conjectured — ■ 
that  this  marriage-feast  is  held.     The  guests, 


238      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

swelled  by  Christ's  disciples,  are  more  r  umer- 
ous  than  had  been  anticipated.  The  wine 
provided  fails.  If  her  Son  be  indeed  that 
great  Prophet  who  is  to  appear,  might  he  not 
take  this  public  opportunity  of  partially,  at 
least,  revealing  himself?  Might  he  not  inter- 
fere to  shield  this  family  from  discredit  ? 
Might  he  not,  with  the  wine  that  still  re- 
mained, do  something  like  to  what  Elijah  had 
done  with  the  cruse  of  oil  and  the  barrel  of 
meal  ?  Filled  with  such  hopes,  she  calls  his 
attention  to  the  deficiency,  trusting  that  he 
may  possibly,  in  his  new  character  and  office, 
remove  it.  "  She  saith  to  him.  They  have  no 
wine.  Jesus  saith  to  her.  Woman,  what  have 
I  to  do  with  thee  ?  (or,  what  hast  thou  to  do 
with  me  ?)  mine  hour  is  not  yet  come." 
Soften  it  as  we  may,  relieve  it  from  all  that 
may  seem  disrespectful,  there  was  discourage- 
ment and  reproof  in  this  reply.  Presuming 
upon  her  motherly  relationship,  on  the  privi- 
leges that  her  thirty  years  of  ma  ernal  control 
have  given  her,  Mary  ventures  to  suggest,  and 
she  does  it  in  the  most  delicate  manner,  whai 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      239 

nis  course  of  action  might  be,  now  that  ho 
enters  upon  the  public  walk  of  the  great 
Prophet.  Upon  all  such  interference  on  her 
part,  an  instant,  gentle,  but  firm  check  must 
be  imposed.  Mary  must  be  taught  the  limits 
of  that  influence  and  authority  which  her 
earthly  relationship  to  him  had  hitherto  per- 
mitted her  to  exercise.  She  must  be  taught 
that  in  the  new  and  higher  path  upon  which 
he  was  now  about  to  enter,  that  motherly  re- 
lationship gave  her  no  place  nor  right  to 
direct  or  to  control. 

Mary  felt  and  acted  upon  the  reproof.  She 
never  afterwards,  at  least  that  we  know  of, 
in  any  way  obtruded  herself.  In  the  history 
of  our  Lord's  three  years'  ministry,  she  never 
once  appears  in  direct  intercourse  with  her 
Son.  She  may  sometimes  have  been  with 
him  in  his  many  circuits  of  Galilee,  but  you 
will  search  in  vain  for  her  name  among  the 
women  who  accompanied  him,  and  who  minis- 
tered to  him.  Between  the  words  spoken  to 
her  at  Cana,  and  those  addressed  to  her  from 
the  cross,  not  another   word,   addressed  by 


2-10  THE    MOTHER    OF    OUR    LORD. 

Jesus  to  his  mother,  is  recorded  in  the  Gos- 
pels. Triie,  indeed,  he  spefiks  of  her ;  and 
in  such  instances  what  was  said  seems  to  have 
been  intended  to  moderate  in  the  minds  of  his 
hearers  their  estimate  of  her  position,  as  his 
mother.  From  the  outskirts  of  a  crowd  that 
had  gathered  round  him  as  he  taught,  the 
message  was  once  sent  in  to  him,  "Behold, 
thy  mother  and  thy  brotliers  stand  without, 
desiring  to  speak  with  thee."  What  they 
wanted  with  him,  we  do  not  know  :  it  was  on 
no  friendly  errand  that  his  brothers  came  ; 
they  disliked  his  public  preaching  on  the  hill- 
sides to  the  multitude  -,  they  thought  him  be- 
side himself.  They  expected,  on  this  occa- 
sion, that  so  soon  as  he  got  their  message,  he 
would  give  up  the  work  in  which  he  was  en- 
gaged, and  come  to  them, — that  he  would  feel 
that  his  mother  and  they  had  a  claim  upon  his 
attention,  superior  to  that  of  the  motley  com- 
pany that  was  pressing  in  upon  him.  It  was 
a  case  in  many  respects  like  that  in  the  Tem- 
ple, of  a  competition  between  two  kinds  or 
classes    of   obligations.      Very  striking  was 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      241 

the  way  in  which  Jesns  in  this  instance  acted. 
As  soon  as  he  heard  the  message,  he  ex 
claimed,  "  Who  is  my  mother  or  my  breth- 
ren ?"  Then,  looking  around,  he  stretches 
forth  his  hands  to  his  disciples  (and  it  is  but 
rarely  that  any  gesture  of  our  Lord  is  chron- 
icled in  the  Gospel  story),  and  said,  "  Behold 
m}''  mother  and  my  brethren ;  for  whosoever 
shall  do  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in 
heaven,  the  same  is  my  brother,  and  sister, 
and  mother."  Another  time,  as  he  was  speak- 
ing with  great  power  and  effect,  one  of  his 
hearers,  struck  with  admiration,  broke  forth 
with  the  exclamation,  "  Blessed  is  the  womb 
that  bare  thee,  and  the  paps  that  gave  thee 
suck !"  "  Yea,"  said  Jesus,  checking  in- 
stantly and  emphatically  that  spirit  which  had 
prompted  the  exclamation, — "  yea,  rather 
blessed  is  he  that  heareth  the  word  of  God, 
and  doeth  it." 

Mary  was  highly  favored.  With  Gabriel 
and  with  all  generations  of  our  race,  we  are 
prepared  to  call  her  blessed.  We  are  pre- 
pared to  render  all  due  honor  to  that  relation- 

il 


242      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

ship  in  wliicli  she  sto  )d  to  the  Redeemer  of 
mankind.  Among  all  the  earthly  distinctions 
and  disrnities  that  could  have  been  bestowed 
upon  a  woman,  the  very  greatest,  we  believe, 
was  that  which  was  thus  conferred  on  Mary. 
And  to  the  reverential  regard  which  this  rela 
tionship  demands,  we  are  prepared  to  add  the 
still  higher  regard  due  to  her  genuine  mod- 
esty, her  simple  faith.  Nor  are  we  sure  but 
that,  in  the  depth  of  our  recoil  from  the  su- 
perstitious reverence  that  has  gathered  round 
her  name,  we  have  overlooked  and  failed  to 
do  full  justice  to  the  simplicity,  the  beauty, 
the  retiringness  of  that  piety  which  makes 
her  among  the  pious  women  of  the  Gospels 
what  John  was  among  the  apostles  of  our 
Lord.  But  when  asked  to  worship  her,  to 
pray  to  her  as  the  mother  of  the  Lord,  to  en- 
treat that  she  will  exert  her  influence  with 
her  Divine  Son,  is  it  possible  to  overlook  that 
treatment  which  she  met  with  at  our  Lord's 
own  hands  when  here  upon  earth  ;  is  it  pos- 
sible to  put  away  from  us  the  thought  that, 
in  that  very  treatment,  he  was  prophetically 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      243 

uttering  his  own  solemn  protest  against  any 
such  idolatrous  magnifying  of  the  position  and 
relationship  in  which  it  pleased  God  that  she 
should  stand  to  him  ?  We  say  this  in  the 
spirit  of  no  mere  ecclesiastical  quarrel  with 
the  worship  of  the  Virgin.  We  know  how 
soon  it  was  that  Paganism  mingled  its  super- 
stitions with  the  simple  worship  of  the  Cruci- 
fied ;  and  we  can  well,  therefore,  understand 
how,  in  virtue  of  all  the  gentle  and  sacred  as- 
sociations that  linked  themselves  with  her 
name,  her  character,  her  peculiar  connexion 
with  Jesus,  Mary  should  have  come  to  be 
regarded  with  an  idolatrous  regard.  Nay, 
further,  looking  back  upon  those  dark  ages 
when,  under  the  grinding  tread  of  Northern 
barbarism,  the  civilization  of  Southern  Eu- 
rope was  well-nigh  obliterated,  we  can  see  a 
beauty,  a  tenderness,  a  power  in  the  worship 
of  Mary  ;  in  the  jDrayers  and  the  hymns  ad- 
dressed to  her,  which  turned  them  into  a 
softening  and  civilizing  element.  Nay,  fur- 
ther still,  were  we  asked,  among  all  the  idola- 
tries that  have  prevailed  upon  this  idol-loving, 


244      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

idol-Avorshipping  world  of  ours,  to  say  which 
one  of  them  it  was  that  touched  the  finest 
chords  of  the  human  heart,  awoke  the  purest 
and  tenderest  emotions,  had  the  best  and 
most  humanizing  effect,  we  do  not  know  but 
that  we  should  fix  upon  this  worship  of  the 
Virgin.  But  delivered,  as  we  have  been, 
from  the  bondage  of  the  Middle-Age  super- 
stitions ;  with  that  narrative  in  our  hands 
which  telJs  us  how  our  Lord  himself  dealt 
with  Mary ;  standing  as  we  do,  or  ought  to 
do,  in  the  full  light  of  that  great  truth,  that 
"  there  is  one  God,  and  one  Mediator  between 
God  and  men,  the  Man  Christ  Jesus," — it  can 
not  but  be  matter  of  surprise,  that  this  wor- 
ship of  the  Virgin  should  still  prevail  in  so 
many  of  the  enlightened  countries  of  Chris- 
tendom ;  suggesting  the  reflection,  how  slowly 
it  is  that  the  human  spirit  emancipates  itself 
from  any  natural,  long-continued,  and  fondly 
cherished  superstition. 

Keeping  now  the  whole  history  of  Mary's 
previous  connexion  with  our  Lord  before  our 
eye,  and  especially  their  intercourse  during 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      245 

the  three  3^ears  of  his  public  ministry,  let  us 
dwell  fqr  a  moment  or  two  upon  Christ's  re- 
cognition of  her  from  the  cross.  This  affec- 
tionate recognition  in  his  dying  agonies,  must 
have  been  peculiarly  grateful  to  Mary.  His 
departure  from  Nazareth,  to  which  he  seems 
to  have  paid  only  one  short  visit  afterwards  ; 
his  separation  from  the  members  of  his  own 
family ;  his  engrossment  with  the  great  ob- 
jects of  his  public  life ;  the  checks  he  had 
imposed  upon  her  interference ;  the  manner 
in  which  he  had  publicly  spoken  of  her ;  all 
these  must  have  created  something  like  a  feel- 
ing of  estrangement  in  Mary's  breast,  as  if 
he  had  ceased  to  be  to  her  all  that  he  once 
was.  How  pleasing  to  her  then  to  learn  from 
that  look  and  speech  of  kindness,  that  his 
love  for  her  remained  unchanged.  How  sooth- 
ing to  her  motherly  affection  to  receive  this 
last,  this  parting  token  of  his  undying  affec- 
tion for  her !  She  may  banish  all  her  fears, 
bury  all  her  suspicions ;  that  Son  of  hers,  he 
loves  her  still,  loves  her  as  he  had  ever  done ; 
lie  cannot  die  without  assuring  her  of  that 


246      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

love.  But  it  is  more  than  a  simple  expres- 
sion of  affection  that  comes  here  from  the 
Redeemer's  lins.  There  is  a  thoughtful  care 
for  Mary's  future  earthly  comfort,  the  secur- 
ing for  her  the  attention  of  another  son,  the 
providing  for  her  the  shelter  of  a  new  home. 
The  dying  Jesus  has  present  to  his  thoughts 
the  bereaved,  the  desolate  condition  in  which 
his  death  will  leave  his  mother ;  he  will  make 
all  the  provision  he  can  towards  alleviating 
her  distress  ;  silver  and  gold  he  has  none  to 
give  her,  but  he  has  what  silver  and  gold 
could  never  buy, — a  hold  and  power  over  the 
heart  of  one  who,  if  he  be  well  described  as 
the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved,  might  almost 
as  aptly  be  described  as  the  disciple  who 
loved  Jesus.  That  hold  he  will  now  exercise 
on  her  behalf  "  Woman,  behold  thy  son !" 
Woman,  not  mother :  he  might,  upon  this 
occasion,  have  restrained  himself  from  calling 
her  so,  lest  the  very  mention  of  her  relation- 
ship to  him  should  mark  her  out  to  that  un- 
friendly crowd,  and  expose  her  to  their  ill- 
iveatment.     He  is  but  repeating,  however,  on 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      247 

the  cross,  the  address  of  the  marriage-feast — 
"  Woman,  behold  thy  son  !"  Mary,  perhaps 
up  to  that  moment,  had  cherished  some  hope 
of  his  deliverance  ;  but  at  that  word  this  hope 
gives  way ;  she  is  to  lose  him ;  he  is  to  be  her 
Son  no  more ;  that  tie  is  to  be  broken,  and  a 
new  one  created  in  its  stead.  A  better,  kinder 
son  than  John,  Jesus  could  not  have  provided  ; 
but,  alas  !  Mary  feels  that  he  can  never  fiU 
that  Son's  place ;  still  there  is  a  great  kind- 
ness in  selecting  such  a  substitute. 

To  John,  no  name,  no  epithet  is  applied ; 
Jesus  simply  looks  at  him  and  says,  "  Behold 
{liy  mother .'"  John  had  already  been  kind  to 
Mary,  was  at  that  moment  doing  what  he 
could  to  comfort  her,  would  have  cared  for  her^ 
though  no  special  charge  of  this  kind  had  been 
given ;  but  a  son  s  place,  that  son's  place,  he 
could  not  have  felt  warranted  to  assume. 
Now,  however,  when  Jesus  with  his  dying 
breath  calls  upon  him  to  occupy  it,  he  counts 
it  as  a  high  honor  conferred  upon  him.  He 
undei'takes  the  trust,  and  proceeds  to  execute 
it  in  the  promptest  and  most  delicate  way. 


248      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LOED. 

Was  he  but  interpreting  aright  the  look  that 
Jesus  gave  him,  or  was  he  only  obeying  an 
impulse  of  thoughtful,  son-like  affection  in  his 
own  breast  ?  However  it  was,  he  saw  that 
Mary's  strength  was  failing,  that  she  was  un- 
fit for  the  closing  scene ;  he  instantly  led  her 
away  to  his  own  home  in  the  city.  She  was 
not  at  the  cross  when  the  darkness  descended  ; 
she  was  not  there  when  the  last  and  bitterest 
agonies  were  borne.  You  search  for  her  in 
vain  among  the  women  who  stood  afar  off  be- 
holding to  the  last.  By  John's  kind  act  of 
instant  withdrawal,  she  was  saved  what  she 
might  not  have  had  strength  to  bear;  and 
though  that  withdrawal  was  neither  prescribed 
nor  suggested  by  our  Lord  himself,  one  can 
well  imagine  with  what  a  grateful  look  he 
would  follow  that  son  as  he  discharged  this 
the  first  office  of  his  new  relationship ;  how 
pleased  he  too  would  be  that  a  mother's  heart 
was  spared  the  pangs  of  witnessing  that  suf- 
fering which  drew  from  him  the  cry,  "  My 
God  !  my  God  !  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?" 
Mary  showed  the  submissiveness  of  her  dis- 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      249 

position  in  yielding  to  John's  suggestion,  and 
retiring  from  the  cross,  and  you  never  see  her 
but  once  again  in  the  Gospel  narrative. 
Neither  at  the  resurrection  nor  at  the  ascen- 
sion, nor  during  the  forty  days  that  inter- 
vened between  them,  is  her  name  mentioned, 
or  does  she  appear.  The  one  and  only  glance 
we  get  of  her  is  in  the  first  chapter  of  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  where  her  name  and 
that  of  our  Lord's  brother,  who  had  come 
then  to  believe  on  him,  are  mentioned  among 
the  hundred  and  twenty  who,  after  the  ascen- 
sion, continued  in  prayer  and  supplication, 
waiting  for  the  promise  of  the  Spirit. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  in  that  love  which 
in  his  latest  hours  Jesus  showed  to  Mary,  let 
us  hail  the  great  and  perfect  example  of  filial 
affection  he  has  left  behind  him.  In  that 
mingling  with  the  broader  thoughts  of  a 
world's  redemption  which  must  then  have 
occupied  his  thoughts,  the  thoughtful  care  for 
her  earthly  comfort,  let  us  see  the  evidence 
of  liow  essential  a  part  of  all  true  religion  it 
is  to  provide,  as   God  enables   us,  for  those 


250      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD 

wliom  we  leave  behind  us  in  this  world.  Let 
no  pretext  of  other  and  higher  obligations 
weaken  within  our  breasts  the  sense  of  our 
obligation  to  discharge  this  duty  before  we 
die. 

From  our  Saviour's  treatment  of  Mary  let 
us  learn,  too,  to  put  in  their  right  place,  to 
estimate  according  to  their  real  worth,  all 
earthly,  all  external  distinctions.  To  be  the 
mother  of  our  Lord,  that  raised  her  above  all 
other  women, — and  we  gladly  join  with  all 
vho,  upon  that  ground,  would  call  her  blessed ; 
yet  would  we  still  more  wish  to  join  heart  and 
soul  in  our  Lord's  own  saying,  that  ''  more 
blessed  is  he  who  henreth  the  word  of  God, 
and  doeth  it."  To  be  the  nearest  herald,  the 
immediate  harbinger  of  Jesus,  that  raised 
John  the  Baptist  above  all  the  prophets,  and 
ranked  him  among  the  greatest  of  the  children 
of  men.  But  yet  there  is  another  connexion 
with  Christ,  higher  and  still  more  honorable — 
a  connexion  in  comparison  with  which  the 
closest  of  mere  external  or  ofHcial  bonds  sink 
into  absolute  insignifi  ^ance — that  inward,  that 


THE    MOTHER    OF    OUR    l.ORD.  251 

spiritual,  that  eternal  tie  which  binds  the 
humble,  contrite,  trustful  spirit  to  the  Re- 
deemer. To  be  the  least  in  his  kingdom,  to 
be  the  least  among  those  who  truly  love  and 
faithfully  obey  him,  is  a  more  enduring,  a 
more  illustrious  distinction  than  to  be  the 
highest  among  those  upon  whom  the  honors 
of  this  world  are  heaped.  And  let  us  bless 
God  for  it,  that  this,  the  highest  honor  tt) 
which  humanity  can  be  exalted,  is  one  that 
is  within  the  reach  of  all.  It  cometh  through 
humilitj^  and  fiith  and  love ;  it  cometh 
through  the  weight  of  our  sin  being  felt,  the 
worth  of  our  Redeemer  being  appreciated. 
It  cometh  through  our  becoming  as  little  chil- 
dren, and  yielding  ourselves  up  to  those 
gracious  influences  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  by 
which  alone  the  proud  heart  can  be  humbled, 
and  the  doubtful  heart  be  assured,  and  the 
unloving  heart  be  brought  to  love.  It  cometh 
through  the  eye  of  faith  being  opened  to  dis- 
cern the  closeness  and  the  reality  of  the 
unseen  world,  that  world  of  spirits,  whose 
all-engulfing  bosom,  when  a  few  more  of  thesft 


252      THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD. 

numbered  years  of  ours  on  earth  are  over, 
shall  have  received  us  all.  It  cometh  from 
our  giving  to  all  that  concerns  our  spiritual 
state,  our  spiritual  welfare  and  preparation  for 
futurity,  that  predominance  in  our  regards, 
our  affections,  our  lives,  to  which  their  inhe- 
rent, their  surpassing  worth,  entitles  them. 
It  springs  from  our  caring  less  for  the  honor 
tliat  cometh  from  man,  and  more  for  that 
honor  which  cometh  from  God  only. 

Finally,  let  us  realize  those  relationships  to 
one  another  established  in  Christ  our  Lord, 
which,  in  their  closeness,  their  blessedness, 
their  enduringness,  so  far  outmeasure  all  the 
other  relationships  of  this  human  life.  Why 
was  John  selected  to  take  Christ's  place,  to 
be  a  second  son  to  Mary  ?  Why  was  Mary 
so  specially  committed  to  his  charge  ?  She 
had  other  sons,  upon  whom  the  duty  natur- 
ally devolved.  They,  indeed,  as  yet  were 
unbelievers  ;  and  upon  that  ground  might  fitly 
ha\  e  been  excluded.  But  were  there  not  two 
of  her  own  sister's  sons  among  the  twelve  ? 
Why  pass  the  sister  and  the  nephews  over, 


THE  MOTHER  OF  OUR  LORD.      253 

and  select  John  to  stand  to  her  in  this  new 
relationship?  It  may  have  been  that  John 
was  better  placed  than  they,  as  to  outward 
circumstances  abler  to  provide  a  home  for  the 
bereaved  ;  but  can  we  ^loubt  that  another  and 
still  weightier  consideration  determined  the 
Saviour's  choice  —  the  spiritual  affinity  be- 
tween John  and  Mary ;  his  capacity  to  enter 
into  all  her  sorrows  ;  his  power  by  sympathy 
to  support  ?  And  ties  kindred  to  those  which 
bound  John  and  Mary  together,  do  they  not 
still  bind  together  those  whose  hearts  have 
been  taught  to  beat  in  unison,  and  who  have 
been  formed  to  be  mutual  helps  and  comforts 
amid  the  trials  and  bereavements  of  life  ? 
Thank  God  for  it,  if  he  has  given  you  any 
such  support  as  Mary  and  John  found  in  each 
other ;  and  rejoice  in  the  belief,  that  those 
relationships  which  are  grounded  on  and  spring 
out  of  our  oneness  in  Jesus  Christ,  partake  not 
of  the  mutability  of  this  earthly  scene,  but, 
destined  to  outlive  it,  are  impressed  with  the 
seal  of  eternity. 


X. 

The  full,  bright  sun  of  an  eastern  sky  has 
been  looking  down  on  what  these  men  are 
doing  who  have  nailed  Jesus  to  the  cross,  and 
are  standing  mocking  and  gibing  him.  The 
mid-day  hour  has  come  ;  when  suddenly  there 
falls  a  darkness  which  swallows  up  the  light, 
and  hangs  a  funeral  pall  around  the  cross  : — 
no  darkness  of  an  eclipse — that  could  not  be 
as  the  moon  then  stood — no  darkness  which 
any  natural  cause  whatever  can  account  for. 
As  we  think  of  it,  many  questions  rise  to 
which  no  answer  can  now  be  given.  Did  it 
come  slowly  on,  deepening  and  deepening  till 
it  reached  its  point  of  thickest  gloom  ?  oi'  was 

*  Mark  xv.  33   34 


THE    DARKNESS    AND    THE    DESERTION.      255 

it,  Jis  we  incline  to  believe,  as  instantantons 
in  its  entrance  as  its  exit :  at  the  sixth  hour, 
covering  all  in  a  moment  with  its  dark  mantle  ; 
at  the  ninth  hour,  in  a  moment  lifting  that 
mantle  off?  Was  it  total  or  partial :  a  dark- 
ness deep  as  that  of  moonless,  starless  mid- 
night, wrapping  the  cross  so  thickly  round, 
that  not  the  man  who  stood  the  nearest  to  it 
could  see  aught  of  the  sufferer  ?  Or  was  it 
the  darkness  of  a  hazy  twilight  obscuring  but 
not  wholly  concealing,  which  left  the  upraised 
form  of  the  Redeemer  dimly  visible  through 
the  gloom  ?  Was  it  local  and  limited,  con- 
fined to  Jerusalem  or  Judea ;  or  did  it  spread 
over  the  entire  enlightened  portion  of  the 
globe  ?  We  cannot  tell.  We  may  say  of  it, 
and  say  truly,  that  it  was  inanimate  nature, 
supplying,  in  her  mute  elements,  that  sym- 
pathy with  her  suffering  Lord  which  was  de- 
nied by  man.  Men  gazed  rudely  on  the  sight, 
but  the  sun  refused  to  look  on  it,  hiding  his 
face  for  a  season.  Men  would  leave  the  Cru- 
cified, exposed  in  shame  and  nakedness,  to 
die ;  but  an  unseen  hand  was  stretched  forth 


256  THE    DARKNESS    AND 

to  draw  the  drapery  of  darkness  around  the 
sufferer,  and  hide  him  from  vulgar  gaze. 

But  the  truest  and  deepest  significance  of 
this  darkness  is  as  a  type  or  emblem  of  the 
horror  of  that  great  darkness  which  at  this 
period  enveloped  the  spirit  of  the  Redeemer. 
The  outer  incidents,  if  there  were  any,  of 
those  three  hours  of  darkness,  remain  untold. 
We  are  left  only  to  believe  that  its  sudden 
descent  wrought  like  a  spell  upon  the  actors 
and  spectators  ;  it  stopped  each  wagging  head, 
it  silenced  each  gibing  tongue ;  not  a  word 
seems  to  have  been  spoken,  not  a  thing  done ; 
there  they  stood,  or  there  they  lay,  with  that 
spell  upon  them,  wondering  what  this  dark- 
ness meant.  We  can  easily  enough  imagine 
what  theij  may  have  fancied  or  felt  during 
that  strange  period  of  suspense  ;  but  who  can 
imagine  what  He  was  thinking  of,  how  He, 
the  Saviour,  was  feeling  in  that  dread  and 
awful  interval  ?  No  eye  j^erhaps  may  have 
pierced  the  outer  darkness  that  shrouded  his 
suffering  body  ;  still  less  may  an}'  human  e^'e 
penetrate  thai  deeper  darkness  which  shrouded 


THL    DESERTION.  257 

his  suffering  soul.  We  are  left  here  without 
a  single  external  index ;  not  a  look,  a  word, 
an  act,  to  tell  us  what  was  going  on  within 
the  Hedeemer's  spirit, — till  the  ninth  hour 
came,  the  moment  which  preceded  the  rolling 
away  of  the  darkness,  and  the  return  of  the 
clear  shining  of  the  day,  and  then  the  only 
sound  that  strikes  the  ear  is  the  agonizing 
cr}^ — "  My  God,  my  God  !  why  hast  thou  for- 
saken me  ?" — a  cry  wrung,  as  it  were,  from 
the  sufferer's  lips,  when  the  severe  agony  of 
his  soul  has  reached  its  last,  its  culminating, 
its  closing  point ;  a  cry  wliich,  revealing  some- 
what of  the  interior  of  the  burdened  heart 
from  which  it  springs,  loaves  still  more  unre- 
vealed ;  a  cry  which,  after  we  have  listened 
to  it,  and  pondered  it,  and  turned  it  over  and 
over  again  in  our  thoughts,  seems  to  grow 
darker  instead  of  brighter  to  our  eye,  and  of 
which  we  become  at  last  convinced  that  it 
was  the  simple,  spontaneous,  irrepressible, 
outcry  of  a  spirit  tried  to  the  last  limit 
of  endurance ;   the  expression  of  what  must 


258  THE    DARKNESS    AND 

for  ever  remain  to  us  an  indescribable,  unfa- 
thomable, unimaginable  woe. 

It  would  strip,  indeed,  this  cry  of  the  suf- 
fering Saviour  of  all  difficulty  and  mystery, 
could  we  look  upon  him  as  a  man,  and  no- 
thing more  ;  could  we  look  upon  him  in  dying 
as  subject  to  the  same  mental  and  spiritual, 
as  well  as  bodily  weakness  with  any  of  our- 
selves ;  could  we  believe  that  such  doubts 
and  fears  as  have  eclipsed  the  faith,  and  dark- 
ened for  a  time  the  hopes  of  other  dying  men, 
had  place  within  his  breast ;  could  we  inter- 
pret this  saying  as  the  utterance  of  a  momen- 
tary despondency,  a  transient  despair.  We 
are  disposed  to  go  the  utmost  length  in  attri- 
buting to  the  humanity  of  our  Lord  all  the 
sinless  frailties  of  our  nature  ;  and  had  we 
seen  him  struggling  in  agony  through  the 
tedious  death-throes  of  dissolution,  the  sink- 
ing body  drawing  the  sinking  spirit  down 
along  with  it,  and  draining  it  of  all  its 
strength, — had  it  been  from  a  spirit  enfeebled 
to  the  uttermost,  its  very  powers  of  thought 
and  appreliension.  of  faith  and  feeling,  faint- 


THE    DESERTION.  259 

ing,  failing,  that  this  sad  lament  proceeded, 
we  can  scarcely  tell  whether  or  not  it  would 
have  been  inconsistent  with  a  right  estimate  of 
the  humanity  of  Jesus  to  attribute  to  him 
such  a  momentary  oppression  under  doubt  and 
fear  as  should  have  forced  this  exclamation 
from  his  lips,  prompted  by  his  obscured  per- 
ception of  his  personal  relationship  with  the 
Father. 

It  stands,  Iwwever,  in  the  way  of  our  re- 
ceiving any  such  interpretation  of  this  say- 
ing, that  it  came  from  one  whose  intellect  was 
so  clear  and  unclouded  that  the  moment  after 
it  was  uttered  he  could  reflect  on  all  he  had 
to  say  or  do  in  order  that  the  Scripture  might 
be  fulfilled,  and  whose  bodily  powers  were  so 
far  from  being  reduced  to  the  last  extremity 
of  weakness,  that  it  was  "  with  a  loud  voice," 
betokening  a  A'igor  as  yet  unexhausted,  that 
he  uttered  the  despairing  cry. 

Besides,  we  have  only  to  look  back  upon 
the  few  days  that  preceded  the  crucifixion,  to 
find  evidence  that  there  mingled  with  the  suf- 
ferings which  Christ  endured  upon  the  cross 


2G0  THE    DARKNESS    AND 

an  element  altogether  different  from  the  com- 
mon pains  of  dying.  On  one  of  the  last  days 
of  his  teaching  in  the  temple,  certain  Greeks 
desired  to  see  him.  Their  earnest  request 
sounded  to  his  prophetic  ear  like  the  entreaty 
of  the  entire  Gentile  world.  It  threw  him 
into  a  sublime  reverie  of  thought.  Bright 
visions  of  a  distant  future,  when  all  men 
should  be  drawn  unto  him,  rose  before  his 
eye ;  but  with  them  the  vision  of  a  future 
even  then  at  hand, — of  his  being  lifted  up 
upon  the  cross.  A  sudden  change  comes  over 
his  spirit.  He  ceases  to  think  of,  to  speak 
with  man.  His  eye  closes  upon  the  crowd 
that  stands  around.  He  is  alone  with  the 
Father.  A  dark  cloud  wraps  his  spirit.  He 
fears  as  he  enters  it.  From  the  bosom  of  the 
darkness  there  comes  an  agitated  voice : 
*'  Now  is  mv  soul  troubled  :  and  what  shall  I 
say  ?  Father,  save  me  from  this  hour  :  but 
for  this  cause  came  I  unto  this  hour.  Father, 
glorify  thy  name  ;" —  some  deep,  inward 
trouble  of  the  heart,  a  shrinking  from  it,  a  cry 
for  deliverance,  a   meek    submission   to  the 


THE    DESERTION,  261 

Divine  will.  You  have  all  these  repeated  in 
order,  and  with  greater  intensity  in  the  Gar- 
den of  Gethsemane  :  "  My  soul  is  exceeding 
sorrowful,  even  unto  death.  0  my  Father,  if 
it  be  possible,  let  this  cup  pass  from  me  : 
nevertheless,  not  as  I  will,  but  as  thou  wilt." 
Here,  once  more,  there  is  the  ngony,  the 
shrinking,  the  petition,  the  acquiescence. 

What  so  troubled  Jesus  in  the  Temple  ? 
what  threw  him  into  that  bloody  sweat  in  the 
Garden  ?  what  drew  from  him  these  strono; 
cryings  for  deliverance  ?  Can  any  one  be- 
lieve that  it  was  the  mere  prospect  of  dying 
upon  a  cross  which  thus  shook  his  spirit  to 
the  very  centre  ?  To  believe  so,  w^ere  to  de- 
grade him  beneath  a  level  to  which  multitudes 
of  his  followers  have  risen.  Deaths  far  more 
formidable,  more  protracted,  more  excruciat- 
ing, they  have  contemplated  beforehand  with 
unruffled  composure,  and  endured  with  un- 
shrinking fortitude.  Shall  the  disciple  be 
greater  than  the  master  ?  No ;  there  was 
something  more  in  that  hour  for  which  Jesus 
came  into  this  world,  somethinjx  more  in  that 


262  THE    DARKNESS    AND 

cup  which  he  took  into  his  trembling  hands, 
than  the  mere  bitterness  of  apprehended  dis- 
solution. He  has  himself  taught  us,  by  the 
language  which  he  employed,  to  identify  the 
hour  and  the  cup.  He  has  taught  us,  too, 
that  this  hour  was  on  him  in  the  Temple  ; 
this  cup  was  there  raised  by  him  to  his  lips. 
The  same  hour  was  on  him  in  the  Garden  ; 
of  the  same  cup  he  there  drank  large  and 
bitter  draughts.  It  was  that  same  hour 
which  came  upon  him  on  the  cross,  to  run  out 
its  course  during  the  supernatural  darkness  ; 
it  was  that  same  cup  which  he"  took  once  more 
into  his  hands,  to  drain  to  the  very  dregs. 
Here  also,  as  in  the  Temple,  in  the  Garden, 
you  have  the  same  features, — the  conflict,  the 
recoil,  the  victory.  Perhaps  the  inward 
trouble  and  agony  of  his  soul  reached  a  some- 
what higher  pitch  on  Calvary  than  in  Geth- 
semane  :  that  bitter  cry — "  My  God,  my 
God  !  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?" — sounds 
to  our  ear  as  coming  from  a  profounder  depth 
of  woe  than  any  into  which  Jesus  had  ever 
sunk  before ;  but  in  source  and  in  character 


THE    DESERTION.  263 

the  sorrow  of  the  Saviour's  spirit  was  in  each 
of  the  three  instances  the  same — a  purely 
mental  or  spiritual  grief,  unconnected  in  two 
of  these  cases  with  any  bodily  endurance, 
and,  in  the  third,  carefully  to  be  distinguished 
from  those  pains  of  dissolution  with  which  it 
mingled. 

Whence  did  that  grief  arise  ?  what  were 
its  elements  ?  how  came  it  to  be  so  accumu- 
lated and  condensed,  and  to  exert  such  a 
pressure  upon  the  spirit  of  our  Uedeemer,  as 
to  force  from  him  those  prayers  in  the  Gar- 
den, this  exclamation  on  the  cross  ?  It  was 
because  he  stood  as  our  great  Head  and  Ptep- 
resentative,  and  suffered  in  our  room  and 
stead  :  "  He  was  wounded  for  our  transgres- 
sions, he  was  bruised  for  our  iniquities  ;"  he 
made  "  his  soul  an  offering  for  sin ;"  "  he 
died  the  just  for  the  unjust,  to  bring  us  to 
God."  The  testimony  of  the  Scriptures  to 
the  vicarious,  sacrificial,  atoning  character  of 
the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ,  is  clear, 
emphatic,  multiform,  and  unambiguous.  But 
when  we  go  beyond  the  simple  statements  of 


264  THE    DARKNESS   AND 

the  Inspired  Record,  and,  admitting  the  great 
fact  of  tlie  Atonement,  inquire  into  the  how 
and  the  wherefore  of  that  fact, — resolved  to 
accept  implicitly  all  that  the  Scriptures  teach, 
but  equally  resolved  not  to  go  beyond  its 
teaching,  nor  add  any  theories  of  our  own  to 
its  simple  and  impressive  lessons, — we  feel 
ourselves  on  the  borders  of  a  region,  too  re- 
mote, too  mysterious,  for  eyes  like  ours  fully 
and  accurately  to  survey. 

Let  us,  however,  that  we  may  catch  a  dis- 
tant sight  of  one  inner  fountain  of  our  Re- 
deemer's sufferings,  approach  it  by  a  path 
which,  for  some  distance  at  least,  is  not  ob- 
scure. It  is  said  in  Scripture  that  Christ 
bore  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on  the  tree ;  it 
is  said,  also,  that  he  bore  our  griefs,  and  car- 
ried our  sorrows.  Our  griefs  he  bore  by 
sympathy  ;  our  sorrows  he  carried  by  enter- 
ing into  them  and  making  them  his  own. 
That  central  heart  of  love  and  pity  opened 
itself,  at  every  point,  to  all  the  forms  and 
varieties  of  human  woe.  Its  sympathy  stood 
free  from  all  those  restraints   that  He  upon 


THE   DESERTION.  265 

ours.  Our  ignornnce,  our  selfishness,  our 
coldness,  our  incapacity  for  more  than  a  few 
intense  affections,  narrow  and  weaken  the 
sympathy  we  feel.  But  he  knows  all,  can 
feel  for  all ;  so  that  not  a  pang  of  grief  wrings 
any  human  bosom  but  sends  an  answering 
thrill  through  the  loving,  pitying  heart  of  our 
Divine  Redeemer.  Human  sympathy,  too, 
deepens,  takes  a  peculiar  character,  a  peculiar 
tenderness,  according  to  the  closeness  and 
dearness  of  the  tie  which  binds  us  to  the  suf- 
ferer. A  mother's  fellow-feeling  with  a  suffer- 
ing child  is  something  very  different  from 
what  any  stranger  can  experience.  And  it  is 
not  simply  as  one  of  us,  as  a  brother  man, 
that  Jesus  feels  for  us  in  our  sorrows.  It  is 
as  one  who  has  linked  himself  to  our  race,  or 
rather  has  linked  our  race  to  him  by  a  tie  the 
nature  and  force  of  which  we  are  little  capa- 
ble of  understanding.  Only  we  may  say, 
that  parent  was  never  bound  to  child,  nor 
child  to  parent,  in  a  bond  so  close  as  that 
which  binds  Jesus  Christ  and  those  whom  he 
came  to  redeem.     It  would  need  his  own  cm- 


266  THE    DARKNESS    AND 

niscience  to  fathom  the  depth  and  intensity 
imparted  to  his  sympathy  by  the  pecuharity 
of  that  relationship  in  which  it  has  pleased 
him  to  f)lace  himself  to  his  own. 

Now,  Christ's  is  as  much  the  central  con- 
science as  the  central  heart  of  humanity. 
Conceive  him  entering  into  a  connexion  with 
human  sin,  kindred  to  that  into  which  he 
enters  with  human  sorrow,  realizing  to  him- 
self, as  he  only  could,  its  extent,  its  invet- 
eracy, its  malignity  :  in  this  way  taking  on 
him  all  our  sins,  ;ind  letting  the  full  impres- 
sion of  their  inherent  turpitude,  their  ruinous 
results,  fall  upon  his  spirit, — who  shall  calcu- 
late for  us  the  bulk  and  weight  of  that  bur- 
den which  might  thus  come  to  be  borne  by 
him?  Once,  in  a  Jewish  synagogue,  he 
looked  round  upon  a  small  company  of  men, 
and  he  was  grieved  because  of  the  hardness 
of  their  hearts.  Let  us  imagine  that  grief 
amplified  and  intensified  to  the  uttermost  by 
our  Lord's  taking  upon  himself  the  sin  of  the 
world.  Let  all  the  hardness  of  all  men's 
hearts,   all  the  hard   speeches   that  ungodly 


THE    DESERTIOr<.  267 

sinners  have  spoken,  the  ungodly  deeds  they 
have  done ;  let  all  the  impurity,  and  in- 
justice, and  cruelty,  and  profanit}',  and  im- 
piety which  have  been  perpetrated  under 
these  heavens  —  of  which  the  enmity  and 
malignity  which  nailed  him  to  tha  cross  might 
be  taken  as  a  specimen  and  index ;  let  all 
that  vast  accumulation  of  human  iniquity  be 
conceived  of  as  j^resent  to  the  Redeemer's 
thoughts,  appropriated  and  realized  by  him  as 
the  iniquity  of  those  to  whom  he  had  linked 
himself  by  a  bond  of  closest  fellowship,  of 
undying,  unquenchable  love ;  let  all  the  sins 
of  that  w^orld  he  came  to  save  gather  in  and 
press  down  upon  the  pure  and  holy  and  loving 
spirit  of  the  man  Christ  Jesus  : — Do  we  not 
get  a  dim  and  distant  sight  of  a  fountain  of 
woe  thus  opened  within,  sufiicient  to  send 
forth  waters  of  bitterness  which  might  well- 
nigh  overwhelm  his  soul,  putting  his  capacity 
to  suffer  to  an  extreme  trial  ? 

Further  still,  may  we  not  imagine  that  as 
he  made  thus  the  sins  of  our  sinful  world  his 
own,  and  thought  and  dwelt  upon  that  holi- 


268  THE   DARKNESS    AND 

ness  of  Gocl,  upon  which  they  were  such  ter- 
rible invasions ;  the  wrath  of  the  Holy  One, 
which  they  had  so  thoroughly  deserved,  and 
so  deeply  had  provoked  ;  the  separation  from 
God,  the  banishment  from  his  presence,  the 
death  they  did  so  righteously  entail ;  that,  in 
the  very  fulness  of  that  love  and  sympathy 
which  made  him  identify  himself  with  us  men 
for  our  salvation,  the  horror  of  such  a  dark- 
ness settled  over  the  mind  of  the  Redeemer 
that  the  face  even  of  his  heavenly  Father  for 
a  moment  seemed  obscured,  that  its  smile 
seemed  changed  into  a  frown,  that  the  mo- 
mentary apprehension  seized  him  that  in  him- 
self that  death,  that  separation  from  the 
Father,  was  about  to  be  realized,  so  that  from 
his  oppressed,  bewildered,  faltering  manhood, 
there  came  forth  the  cry,  "  My  God,  my  God  ! 
why  hast  thou  forsaken  me?" 

Let  us  not  forget  that  there  was  not,  indeed 
could  not  be — the  nature  of  the  connexion 
forbade  it — any  absolute  or  entire  desertion 
of  the  Son  by  the  Father.  "  Therefore,"  said 
Jesus,  "doth  my  Father  love  me,  because  I 


THE    DESERTION.  269 

lay  down  my  life  for  the  sheep."     Could  that 
love  be  withdrawn  from  Jesus  when  he  was 
in    the    very    act   of  laying    down    his  life  ? 
"This,"  said  the  Father,  "is  my  beloved  Son, 
in  whom  I  am  well  pleased."     Was  there  ever 
a  time  at  which  he  was  more  pleased  with 
him  than  when  he  was  offering  himself  up  in 
that  sacrifice  so  acceptable  to  God  ?    Nor  does 
the  Son  ever  entirely  lose    his   hold   of  the 
Father.     Even  in  this  moment  of  amazement 
and  oppression  it  is  still  to  God,  as  Ins  God, 
that  he   speaks :  "  Ify  God  !  mj/  God !  why 
hast  thou  forsaken  me  !"     It  was  the  sensible 
comfort  only  of  the  Divine  presence  and  favor 
which  were  for  the  time  withdrawn ;  the  felt 
inflowings  of  the  Divine  love  which  were  for 
the  time  checked.     But  what  a  time  of  agony 
must  that  have  been  to  him  who  knew,  as  none 
other  could,  what  it  was  to  bask  in  the  linht 
of   his   Father's   countenance;    who  felt,   as 
none  other  could,  that  his  favor  indeed  was 
life !     Oil  us, — so  little  do  we  know  or  feel 
wiiat   it   is    to    be    forsaken   by    God,  —  the 
thought  of  it,  or  sense  of  it,  may  make  but  a 


270  THE    DARKNESS    AND 

slight  impression,  produce  but  little  heartfelt 
misery ;  but  to  him  it  was  the  consummation 
and  the  concentration  of  all  woe,  beyond  which 
there  was  and  could  be  no  deeper  anguish  for 
the  soul. 

I  have  thus  presented  to  you  but  a  single 
side,  as  it  were,  of  that  sorrow  unto  death 
which  rent  the  bosom  of  the  Redeemer,  as  he 
was  offering  himself  a  sacrifice  for  us  upon 
the  cross.  Perhaps  it  is  the  side  which  lies 
nearest  to  us,  and  is  most  open  to  our  com- 
prehension. Certainly  it  is  one  the  looking 
at  which  believingly  is  fitted  to  tell  power- 
fully on  our  consciences  and  hearts — to  make 
us  feel  the  exceeding  sinfulness  of  our  sin, 
and  set  us  hopefully  and  trustfully  to  struggle 
with  the  temptations  that  beset  our  path. 

In  a  household  wliich  enjoyed  all  the  bene- 
fits of  high  culture  and  Christian  care,  one  of 
the  children  committed  a  grievous  and  unex- 
pected fault ;  he  told  a  Msehood  to  cover  a 
petty  theft;  rebuke  and  punishment  were 
administered,  carried  farther  than  they  had 
ever  been  before,  but  without  effect.     The 


THE    DESERTION.  271 

oiTender  was  not  awakened  to  any  real  or  deep 
sorrow  for  his  ofTence.  The  boy's  insensibil- 
ity quite  overcame  his  father.  Sitting  in  the 
same  room  with  his  obstinate  and  sullen  child, 
he  bent  his  head  upon  his  hands,  and,  sob- 
bing, burst  into  a  flood  of  tears.  For  a  mo- 
ment or  two  the  boy  looked  on  in  wonder ;  he 
then  crept  gradually  nearer  and  nearer  to  his 
sobbing  parent,  and  at  last  got  up  upon  his 
father's  knees,  asking,  in  a  low  whisper,  why 
it  was  that  he  was  weeping  so.  lie  was  told 
the  reason.  It  wrought  like  a  spell  upon  his 
young  heart ;  the  sight  of  his  father  suffering 
so  bitterly  on  his  account  was  more  than  he 
could  bear.  He  flung  his  little  arms  around 
his  father,  and  wept  along  with  him.  That 
father  never  needed  to  correct  his  child  again 
for  any  like  offence.  And  surely,  if,  in  that 
great  sorrow  which  overwhelmed  the  spirit  of 
our  Redeemer  on  the  cross,  there  mingled,  as 
one  of  its  ingredients,  a  grief  like,  in  origin 
and  character,  to  that  which  wrung  this 
father's  heart,  and  melted  his  child  to  peni- 
tence, the  sight  and  thought  of  it  ought  to 


272  THE    DARKNESS    AND 

exert  a  kindred  power  over  those  for  whom 
Jesus  died. 

A  younger  son  is  guilty  of  a  great  offence 
against  his  fli^.her.  His  elder  brother,  in  act- 
ing the  part  of  a  mediator  between  the  offend- 
ing child  and  his  offended  parent,  might  volun- 
tarily submit  to  the  exact  and  the  full  pun- 
ishment which  his  younger  brother  had 
deserved, — by  doing  so  might  turn  away  the 
father's  wrath,  and  earn  the  title  to  a  brother's 
gratitude.  But  what  if  the  offender  sees  his 
elder  brother,  at  the  pure  and  simple  impulse 
of  love,  melted  into  a  profound  and  heart- 
breaking grief,  yearning  over  him,  weeping 
over  him,  ^aking  on  himself  a  suffering  far 
more  acute  than  that  which  the  lash  of  pa- 
rental discipline  might  righteously  have  in- 
flicted on  the  offender,  would  not  the  sight  of 
the  pain  that  his  conduct  had  given  one  who 
lo^ed  him  so  tenderly,  tell  most  powerfully  in 
the  way  of  quickening  him  to  a  sense  of  his 
v/rong-doing  ?  Transfer  this  to  our  Elder 
Brother,  the  Mediator  wdth  our  offended 
Father  in  heaven.      The   exact   punishment 


THE    DESERTION.  273 

which  our  sin  entails — remorse,  despair,  the 
sting  of  a  torturing  conscience,  the  felt  abid- 
ing misery  of  a  soul  cut  off  from  the  Divine 
favor — Jesus  could  not  literally  bear.  He 
has,  indeed,  borne  that  for  us  which  has  satis- 
fied the  Divine  justice,  and  been  accepted  as 
a  full  and  adequate  atonement  for  our  trans- 
gression ;  but  may  it  not  have  been  that  the 
suffering  in  our  room  and  stead,  which  was 
accepted  of  the  Father,  w^as  part  of  the  suffer- 
ing wdiich  our  great  sin  and  his  great  love 
drew"  down  on  Mm,  who,  b}^  linking  himself 
to  us  by  the  tie  of  a  common  humanity,  laid  a 
brother's  heart  open  to  such  a  sorrow  for  our 
sin  as  none  but  the  Eternal  Son  of  the  Father 
could  have  endured  ?  Surely,  in  the  conside- 
ration that  it  w^as  in  such  kind  of  sufiering 
with  and  for  our  sins  that  the  great  Atone- 
ment of  the  cross,  in  a  measure  at  least,  con- 
sisted, there  is  one  of  the  most  direct  and 
powerful  of  appeals, — one  singularly  fitted  to 
touch,  to  soften,  to  subdue, 

I   am  very  conscious   how  little  anything 

which  has  as  yet  been  said  is  fitted  to  throw 

11 


274       THE    DARKNESS    AND  THE    DESERTION. 

full  or  satisfactory  light  upon  that  most  mys- 
terious of  all  the  mysterious  sayings  of  our 
Lord — the  plaintive,  lonely,  loud,  and  bitter 
cr}'  which  emanated  from  the  cross,  which, 
piercing  the  overhanging  darkness,  was  heard 
with  wonder  in  the  heavens.  It  came  out  of 
1  the  depth  of  an  anguish  that  we  have  no 
plummet  in  our  hand  to  sound ;  and  we  be- 
come only  the  more  conscious  how  unfathom- 
able that  depth  is,  by  tr\'ing  it  here  and 
there  with  the  line  of  our  short-reaching  in- 
tellect. Instead  of  hoping  to  find  the  bot- 
tom anywhere,  let  us  pause  upon  the  brink  ; 
adoring,  wondering,  praising  that  great  love 
of  our  most  gracious  Saviour,  wdiich  has  a 
height  and  a  depth,  a  length  and  a  breadth 
in  it,  surpassing  all  human,  all  angelic  mea- 
surement : — 

"  Oh,  never,  never  canst  thou  know 

What  then  for  thee  the  Sa\iour  bore, 
The  pangs  of  that  mysterious  woe 

Which  wrung  his  bosom's  inmost  cere. 
Yes,  man  for  man  perchance  may  bravo 
The  horrors  of  the  yawning  grave ; 
And  friend  for  friend,  or  son  for  sire, 
Undaunted  ana  unmoved  expire, 
From  love,  or  piety,  or  pride  ; 
But  who  can  die  as  Jesus  died?" 


XI. 

With  the  arrival,  of  the  ninth  hour,  the 
outer  darkness  cleared  away,  and  with  it  too 
the  horrors  of  that  inner  darkness,  from  whose 
troubled  bosom  the  cry  at  last  came  forth, 
"  My  God,  my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me  ?"  That  mental  agony,  one  of  whose  in- 
gredients— perhaps  to  us  the  most  intelligible 
— I  endeavored  last  Sunday  to  describe,  had 
been  endured.  The  hour  for  which  he  came 
into  the  world  has  run  its  course;  the  cup 
which  with  such  a  trembling  hand  he  had  put 
to  shrinking  lips,  has  been  drunk  to  its  dregs ; 
the  powers  of  darkness  have  made  on  him 
their  last  assault,  and  been  repelled ;  the  mo- 

*  Matt,  xxvii.  47-50  •   Mark  xv.  35-37  ;    Luke  xxiii.  46  ;   John 
xix.  28-30 


276  "IT   IS    FINISHED." 

meniary  darkness  of  his  Father's  countenance 
has  passed  awa3^  As  the  sun  of  nature  dis- 
pels the  gloom  that  for  these  three  hours  had 
hung  around  the  scene,  and  sheds  once  more 
his  illuminating  beams  upon  the  cross;  even 
so  the  light  of  an  answering  inward  joy  comes 
to  cheer  in  death  the  spirit  of  our  Redeemer. 
It  is  not  in  darkness,  whether  outward  or 
inward, — not  in  darkness,  but  in  light,  in  full, 
clear,  unclouded  light,  that  Jesus  dies. 

The  first,  however,  and  immediate  effect  of 
the  lifting  from  his  oppressed  and  burdened 
heart  that  load  of  inward  grief  which  had 
been  laid  upon  it,  w\as  a  reviving  conscious- 
ness of  his  bodily  condition,  the  awakening  of 
the  sensation  of  a  burning  thirst.  Let  the 
spirit  be  thoroughly  absorbed  by  any  very 
strong  emotion,  and  the  bodily  sensations  are 
for  the  time  unfelt  or  overborne,  they  fail  to 
attract  notice  ;  but  let  the  tide  of  that  over- 
whelming emotion  retreat,  and  these  sensa- 
tions once  more  exert  their  power.  In  the 
shock  of  battle,  the  excited  combatant  may 
receive  his  death-wound,  and  be  unconscious 


«TT   IS    FINISHED."  277 

of  pain.  It  is  when  they  lay  him  down  in 
quiet  to  die,  that  exhausted  nature  betrays  a 
sense  of  suffering.  So  it  is.  after  a  manner, 
here  with  Christ.  His  lips  scarce  feel  their 
parchedness  as  they  utter  the  cry,  "  My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken  me  ?"  Too 
full,  too  agitated,  is  the  soul  within,  to  be 
keenly  alive  to  bodily  sensations.  But  now 
that  the  relief  from  inward  agony  has  come, 
the  cravings  of  nature  return,  and  first  among 
these  the  strong  desire  for  something  to  alle- 
viate the  thirst.  This  thirst,  however,  so  far 
from  entirely  engrossing  his  thoughts,  serves 
but  to  suggest  to  the  dying  Saviour — and  this 
shows,  as  we  before  remarked,  how  clear  and 
calm  and  self-possessed  he  was  to  the  very 
last — that  among  all  the  numerous  prophecies 
which  had  spoken  of  the  time  and  manner  of 
his  decease,  of  his  being  numbered  with  trans- 
gressors, of  the  shaking  of  heads,  and  the 
shooting  out  of  tongues,  the  parting  of  his 
garments,  the  casting  lots  for  his  vesture, 
there  still  was  one*  about  their  giving  him  in 

*  See  Psalai  Ixix. 


278  "IT   IS   FINISHED." 

his  thirst  vinegar  to  drink,  which  remained  to 
to  be  fulfilled.  As  being,  then,  at  once  the 
natural  expression  of  the  feeling  of  the  mo- 
ment, and  the  means  of  bringing  about  the 
fulfilment  of  that  prophecy,  "  Jesus  said,  I 
thirsty 

In  saying  so,  he  made  an  appeal  to  the  sym- 
pathy of  his  crucifiers,  in  the  belief  that  they 
would  offer  him  some  of  that  sour  wine,  or 
vinegar  which  was  the  ordinary  drink  of  the 
Roman  soldiers.  Did  Jesus  know  how  that 
appeal  would  be  met  and  answered  ?  We 
cannot  but  believe  he  did ;  and  if  so,  it  stands 
out  as  at  once  the  last  act  in  point  of  time, 
and  one  of  the  lowest  in  point  of  degree,  of 
that  humiliation  before  men  to  which  it 
pleased  him  to  stoop,  that  he  addressed  him- 
self as  a  petitioner  to  those  who  treated  his 
petition  as  they  did.  Let  us  try  to  realize 
what  happened  around  the  cross  immediately 
after  the  departure  of  the  three  hours'  dark- 
ness. One  might  have  expected  that  the 
natural  awe  which  that  darkness  had  undoubt- 
edly inspired  ;   the  moaning  cry,  as  from  one 


"IT    IS    FINISHED."  279 

deserted,  that  came  from  the  cross,  as  it  was 
rolling  away  ;  the  fresh  sight  of  Jesus,  upon 
whose  palHd  features  there  lingered  the  traces 
of  his  terrible  agony  ;  and,  last  of  all,  his 
asking  of  them  to  drink, — would  have  con- 
spired to  awaken  pity,  or  at  least  to  silence 
scorn.  The  coming  back,  however,  of  the 
light — relieving,  perhaps,  a  dread  they  might 
have  felt  that  in  the  darkness  Jesus  should 
escape  or  be  delivered — seems  to  have  rekin- 
dled that  fiendish  malignity  which  now  found 
a  last  and  most  demoniac  way  of  expressing 
itself.  "Eli!  Eli!"— no  Jew  could  possibly 
misunderstand  the  words,  or  imagine  that  they 
were  a  call  to  Elias  for  help.  The  Koman 
soldiers  did  not  know  enough  about  Elias  to 
have  fallen  on  any  such  interpretation.  That 
the  words  were  taken  up,  played  upon  by  the 
bystanders,  and  turned  into  a  new  instru- 
ment of  mockery,  shows  to  what  a  fiendish 
length  of  heartless,  pitiless  contempt  and 
scorn  such  passions  as  those  of  these  Scribes 
and  Pharisees,  if  unrestrained,  will  go.  One, 
indeed,  of  those  around  the  cross  appears  to 


280  "IT    IS    FINISHED." 

have  been  touched  with  momentiiry  pitj, 
perhaps  a  Roman  soldier,  who,  when  he  heard 
Jesus  say,  "I  thirst,"  and  looked  upon  his 
pale,  parched  lips,  ran  and  took  a  stalk  of 
hyssop.  From  what  we  know  of  the  size  of 
the  plant,  this  stalk  could  not  have  been  much 
above  two  feet  long,  but  it  was  long  enough 
to  reach  the  lips  of  Jesus,  the  feet  of  a  person 
crucified  not  being  ordinarily  elevated  more 
than  a  foot  or  two  above  the  ground.  This 
circumstance  explains  to  us  how  close  to  the 
crucified  the  soldiers  must  have  stood ;  how 
near  many  of  the  outstanding  crowd  may 
have  been ;  how  natural  and  easy  it  was  for 
Jesus  to  speak  to  Mary  and  John  as  he  did. 
To  that  stalk  of  hyssop  the  man  attached  a 
sponge,  and,  dipping  it  in  the  vessel  of  vine- 
gar, that  stood  at  hand,  was  putting  it  to  the 
Saviour's  lips,  when  the  mocking  crowd  cried 
out,  "  Let  be ;  let  us  see  whether  Elias  will 
come  to  save  him."  This  did  not  stop  him 
from  giving  Jesus,  in  his  thirst,  vinegar  to 
drink.  The  ancient  prophecy  he  must  uncon 
sf^iously  fulfil ;  but  it  did  serve  to  half-extin- 


"IT    IS    FINISHED,"  281 

guisli  the  prompting  upon  wliict  he  had  be- 
gun to  act,  and  induce  hiin  to  take  up  into  his 
own  lips,  and  to  repeat  the  current  mockery, 
"  Let  us  see  whether  Elias  will  come  to  take 
him  down." 

When  Jesus  had  received  the  vinegar,  he 
said,  "/^  is  finished  /"  It  does  not  fall  in  with 
the  character  or  purpose  of  these  Lectures, 
intended  to  be  as  purely  as  possible  exposi- 
tory, to  take  up  this  memorable  expression  of 
our  dying  Lord,  and  use  it  as  a  text  out  of 
which  a  full  exposition  of  the  doctrine  of  the 
Cross  might  be  derived.  Rather,  as  being 
more  in  accordance  with  our  present  design, 
let  us  endeavor  to  conceive  of,  and  to  enter 
into,  as  far  as  it  is  possible,  the  spirit  and 
meaning  of  the  expression  as  employed  by  our 
Lord  upon  the  cross. 

First,  then,  as  coming  at  this  time  from  the 
Saviour's  lips,  it  betokens  an  inward  and  deep 
sensation  of  relief,  repose ;  relief  from  a 
heavy  burden ;  repose  after  a  toilsome  Libor. 
To  the  bearing  of  that  burden,  the  endurance 
of  that  toil,  Jesus  had   long  and  anxiously 


282  "IT   IS    FINISHED," 

looked  forward.  From  that  time,  if  time  it- 
may  be  called,  when  he  undertook  the  high 
office  of  the  Mediatorship, — from  the  begin- 
ning, even  from  everlasting,  through  the  vista 
of  the  future,  the  cross  of  his  last  agony  had 
risen  up  before  his  all-seeing  eye,  as  the  object 
towards  which,  notwithstanding  the  dark 
shadows  cast  before  it,  the  thought  of  his 
spirit  stretched  forward.  In  what  manner 
and  with  what  feeling  it  was  regarded  by  him 
in  the  period  which  preceded  his  incarnation, 
it  becomes  us  not  to  speak,  as  we  have  no 
means  of  judging ;  but  we  can  mark  how  he 
felt  regarding  it  after  he  became  a  man. 

In  the  earlier  period  of  his  ministry,  Christ 
practised  a  strict  reserve  in  speaking  of  his 
death.  In  spite,  however,  of  that  self-imposed 
restraint,  broken  hints  were  ever  and  anon 
dropping  from  his  lips,  sounding  quite  strange 
and  enigmatical  in  the  ears  to  which  they 
were  addressed.  •'!  have  a  baptism,"  said 
he  to  his  disciples,  "  to  be  baptized  with,  and 
bow  am  I  straitened  till  it  be  accomplished !" 

When   near  the  end  of  his  ministry,  the 


»»IT   IS    FINISHED."  28 


o 


necessity  for  reserve  was  removed,  Jesus 
spoke  openly  about  his  coming  death,  and 
always  in  such  a  way  as  to  convey  the  very 
deepest  impression  of  the  profound  interest 
with  which  he  himself  contemplated  before- 
hand that  great  event.  So  eagerly  did  he 
look  forward  to  it,  so  striking  an  influence 
had  that  prospect  even  upon  his  outward  as- 
pect and  movements,  that  when  for  the  last 
time,  he  set  his  face  to  go  up  to  Jerusalem, 
and  all  the  things  that  were  to  happen  to  him 
there  came  rushing  into  his  mind,  he  "  went 
before"  the  twelve,  as  if  impatient  to  get  for- 
ward. They  were  amazed,  w^e  are  told,  as  he 
did  so ;  and  as  they  followed  him,  and  gazed 
upon  him,  the?/  were  afraid.  The  reason  of 
this  rapid  gait  and  strange  expression  he  re- 
vealed, when  he  took  them  apart  by  the  way, 
and  told  them  what  his  thoughts  had  been 
dwelling  on.  There  was  but  one  occasion  on 
which  he  could  freely  and  intelligibly  speak 
out  the  sentiments  of  his  heart :  it  was  when 
he  stood  with  Moses  and  Elias  on  the  mount, 
and  there,  even  when  invested  with  the  gloriev«< 


284  "IT    IS    FINISHED." 

of  transfiguration,  the  decease  which  he  was 
to  accomplish  at  Jerusalem  was  the  one  chosen 
topic  of  discourse.  As  the  time  drew  near, 
still  oftener  was  that  great  decease  before  his 
thoughts ;  still  heavier  did  its  impending 
weight  appear  to  press  upon  his  spirit.  It 
was  not,  it  could  not  be  any  mere  ordinary 
human  death  that  so  occupied  the  thoughts 
of  Jesus  Christ.  We  endeavored  in  our  last 
Lecture  to  make  it  apparent  to  you  that  the 
true,  the  real  sufferings  of  that  death  lay  in 
another,  far  deeper  region  than  that  to  which 
the  ordinary  pangs  of  bodily  dissolution  be- 
long; and  we  cannot  but  believe  that  that 
internal  conflict,  that  inner  agony  of  soul,  re- 
served for  the  last  days  and  hours  of  our  Re- 
deemer's life,  was  broken,  as  it  were,  into 
parts,  distributed  between  the  Temple,  the 
Garden,  the  Cross,  for  the  very  purpose  of 
making  it  palpable,  even  to  the  eye  of  the 
ordinary  observer,  that  the  sufferings  of  the 
Redeemer's  soul  formed,  as  has  been  well 
said,  the  very  soul  of  his  sufferings.  And 
when    those    mysterious    sufferings,   so  long 


«'IT    IS    FINISHED."  285 

looked  forward  to,  at  last  were  over,  the  load 
borne  and  lifted  off,  with  what  a  deep  inward 
feeling  of  relief,  repose,  must  Jesus  have  said, 
"  It  is  finished  !" 

Secondly,  Connecting  this  expression  with 
what  went  so  immediately  before — our  Lord's 
remembrance  of  all  that  was  needful  to  be 
done  to  him  and  by  him  in  dying,  in  order 
that  the  Scriptures  might  be  fulfilled — it  may 
reasonably  be  assumed  that  he  meant  thereby 
to  declare  the  final  close  and  completion  of 
that  long  series  of  types  and  prophecies  of 
his  death  which  crowd  the  pages  of  the  Old 
Testament  Scriptures.  In  the  very  number 
and  variety  of  these  types  and  prophecies, 
another  attestation  meets  our  eye  to  the  pre- 
eminent importance  of  that  event  to  which 
they  point.  If  you  take  the  twenty-four  hours 
which  embrace  the  last  night  and  day  of  the 
Redeemer's  life,  you  will  find  that  more  fre- 
quent and  more  minute  pre-intimations  of 
what  occurred  throughout  their  course  are  to 
be  found  in  the  prophetic  pages,  than  of  what 
happened  in  any  other  equal  period  in  the  his- 


286  "IT   IS    FINISHED." 

tory  of  our  globe.  The  seemingly  trifling 
character  of  some  of  the  incidents  which  are 
made  the  subjects  of  prophecy  at  first  sur- 
prises us  ;  but  that  surprise  changes  into  won- 
der as  we  perceive  that  they  fix  our  attention 
upon  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  the  central 
incident  of  this  world's  strange  history,  the 
one  around  which  the  whole  spiritual  govern- 
ment of  this  earth  revolves.  By  all  those 
promises  and  prophecies,  those  typical  persons 
and  typical  events  and  typical  services, — the 
raising  of  the  altar,  the  slaying  of  the  sacri- 
fice, the  institution  of  the  priesthood,  the  ark, 
with  its  broken  tables  and  sprinkled  mercy- 
seat,  the  Passover,  the  great  day  of  atone- 
ment, the  passage  of  the  High  Priest  within 
the  veil ; — by  the  voice  of  God  himself  speak- 
ing, in  the  first  promise,  about  the  seed  of  the 
woman,  and  the  bruising  of  his  heel ;  by  the 
wonderful  Psalms  of  David,  in  which  the  gen- 
eral description  of  the  sufi'ering  righteous  man 
passes  into  those  minute  details  which  were 
embodied  in  the  Crucifixion;  by  those  rapt 
utterances  of  Isaiah,  some  portions  of  which 


«'IT    IS    FINISHED."  287 

read  now  more  like  histories  of  the  past  than 
intimations  of  the  future, — the  eye  of  this 
world's  hope  was  turned  to  that  event  before- 
hand, as  backward  to  it  the  eye  of  the  world's 
faith  has  ever  since  been  directed. 

But,  Thirdly,  that  we  may  make  our  way 
into  the  very  heart  of  its  meaning,  does  not 
the  expression,  "  It  is  finished,"  suggest  the 
idea  of  a  prescribed,  a  distinct,  a  definite  work, 
brought  to  a  final,  satisfactory,  and  triumph- 
ant conclusion  ?  Spoken  in  no  boastful  spirit, 
it  is  the  language  of  one  who,  having  had  a 
great  commission  given  him,  a  great  task  as- 
signed, announces  that  the  commission  has 
been  executed,  the  task  fulfilled.  Taking  it 
as  the  simple  announcement  of  the  fact,  that 
some  great  transaction  was  brought  to  its  con- 
feummation,  we  ask  ourselves,  as  w^e  contem- 
plate the  entire  circle  of  the  Redeemer's 
services  to  our  race,  still  running  out  their 
course,  what  part  of  these  services  was  it  of 
which  it  could  be  said  that  it  was  then  finished? 
Here,  in  the  foreground,  we  have  to  put  that 
one  and  perfect  sacrifice  which  he  offered  up 


288  "IT   IS    FINISHED." 

for  the  sin  of  the  world.  Through  the  Eter- 
nal Spirit,  he  offered  himself  without  spot  to 
God,  and  by  that  one  sacrifice  for  sin,  once 
for  all,  he  hath  perfected  for  ever  those  that 
are  sanctified ;  he  hath  clone  all  that  was 
needed  to  atone  for  human  guilt,  to  redeem  us 
from  the  curse  of  the  law,  to  finish  transgres- 
sion, to  make  an  end  of  sin,  to  make  recon- 
ciliation for  iniquity. 

But  again,  Christ's  death  upon  the  cross 
brought  to  a  close  that  obedience  to  the  Di- 
vine law,  that  perfect  fulfilment  of  all  the 
righteousness  which  it  required ;  held  out  to 
us  as  the  ground  upon  which  we  are  to  find 
immediate  and  full  acceptance  with  our  Maker. 
"As  by  one  man's  disobedience  many  were 
made  sinners  ;  so  by  the  obedience  of  one 
shall  many  be  made  righteous."  "  He  made 
him  to  be  sin  for  us  who  knew  no  sin,  that  we 
might  be  made  the  righteousness  of  God  in 
him."  "  For  all  have  sinned,  and  come  short 
of  the  glory  of  God  :  being  justified  freely  by 
his  grace,  through  the  redemption  that  is  in 
Christ  Jesus ;  whom  God  liath  set  forth  to  be 


"IT    IS    FINISHED."  289 

a  propitiation  through  faith  in  his  blood,  to 
declare  his  righteousness  for  the  remission  of 
sins  that  are  past ;  to  declare,  I  say,  at  this 
time  his  righteousness  ;  that  he  might  be  just, 
and  the  justifier  of  him  which  believeth  in 
Jesus." 

Further  still — though  embraced  indeed  iu 
the  two  particulars  of  the  sufferings  and  ser- 
vices of  the  Redeemer  already  mentioned — 
there  was  finished  upon  the  cross  the  new,  the 
full,  the  wonderful  revelation  of  the  Father, 
that  unbosoming  of  the  Eternal,  the  opening 
up  to  us  of  the  very  heart  of  the  Godhead, 
the  exhibition  of  the  mingled  love  and  holi- 
ness of  our  Father  who  is  in  heaven.  There 
was  completed  then  that  glorious,  that  attract- 
ive, that  subduing  manifestation  of  the  love 
of  God  for  sinful  men,  which  carried  the  Di- 
vine Being  to  the  extreme  length  of  suffering 
and  of  self-sacrifice,  and  which  has  ever 
formed  the  most  powerful  of  aU  instruments 
for  pacifying  the  conscience,  melting  the  heart, 
moulding  the  character,  renewing  and  sancti- 
fying the  will. 

13 


290  "IT    IS    FINISHED." 

Whether,  then,  he  looked  up  to  God,  and 
thought  of  his  having  glorified  his  name, 
finished  the  work  thai  had  been  given  him  to 
do ;  or  whether  he  looked  down  to  man,  and 
thought  of  the  saving  power  which  his  cross 
was  to  exert  over  millions  upon  millions  of 
the  human  family,  it  may  well  have  been  to 
Jesus  Christ  a  moment  of  intensest  joy^ 
when — his  last  pang  endured,  his  last  service 
rendered,  his  strictly  vicarious  work  com- 
pleted— he  exclaimed,  "  It  is  finished  !" 

To  Jesus  Christ  alone  was  given  that  joy 
in  dying  which  springs  from  the  knowledge 
that  all  the  ends  of  living  and  dying  had 
been  perfectly  answered.  Looking  upon  the 
career  he  had  pursued,  he  could  see  not  a 
single  blot  nor  blank  space  in  the  whole.  Of 
what  other  man,  cut  off  as  he  was  in  the 
midst  of  his  years,  could  the  same  be  said  ? 
When  good  and  great  men  die  in  the  full  flush 
of  their  manhood,  the  full  vigor  of  their 
powers,  we  are  apt  to  mourn  the  untimely 
stroke  that  has  laid  them  low,  that  has  cut 
short  so  many  of  the  undertakings  they  were 


<^IT   IS   FINISHED."  291 

engaged  in,  deprived  the  world  of  so  much 
service  that  it  was  in  their  heart  to  have  ren- 
dered. Nor  can  any  such  look  back  upon  the 
past  without  this  humbling  feeling  in  the 
retrospect,  that  many  an  offence  has  been 
committed,  many  a  duty  left  imperfectly  dis- 
charged. But  for  us  there  is  no  place  for 
mourning,  as  we  contemplate  the  death  of  our 
Redeemer,  which  came  to  close  the  one  and 
only  life  which,  stainless  throughout  its  every 
hour,  did  so  thoroughly  and  to  the  last  degree 
of  the  Divine  requirement  accomplish  all  that 
had  been  intended.  And  for  him  it  was  as  if 
the  cup  of  bitterness  having  been  drunk,  the 
cry  of  agony  as  he  drained  the  last  drop  of  it 
having  been  uttered,  there  was  given  to  him, 
even  before  he  died,  to  taste  a  single  drop  of 
that  other  cup — that  cup  of  full  ecstatic  bliss, 
which  the  contemplation  of  the  travail  of  his 
soul,  of  the  glory  it  rendered  to  the  Father, 
the  good  it  did  to  man,  shall  never  cease  to 
yield. 

But  to  what  practical  use  are  we  to  turn 
this  declaration  of  our  dying  Saviour  ?     He 


292  «tIT  IS   FIKISHED.'* 

rested  complacently,  gratefully,  exultingly  in 
the  thought  that  his  work  for  us  was  finished. 
Shall  we  not  try  to  enter  into  the  full  mean- 
ing of  this  great  saying  ?  Shall  we  not  try, 
in  the  way  in  which  it  becomes  us,  to  enter 
with  him  into  that  same  rest  ?  For  the  for- 
giveness, then,  of  all  our  sins,  for  our  accept- 
ance with  a  holy  and  righteous  God,  let  us 
put  our  sole,  immediate,  and  entire  trust  upon 
this  finished  Avork  of  our  Redeemer ;  let  us 
believe,  that  whatever  obstacles  our  guilt 
threw  in  the  way  of  our  being  received  back 
into  the  Divine  favor,  have  been  removed ; 
that  whatever  the  holiness  of  the  lawgiver, 
and  the  integrity  of  his  law,  and  the  moral 
interests  of  his  government  required  in  the 
way  of  atonement  or  expiation,  has  been  ren- 
dered. Let  us  look  upon  the  way  of  access 
to  God  as  lying  quite  open  to  us  ;  let  us  take 
the  pardon ;  let  us  enter  into  peace  with 
God  ;  let  us  bring  all  our  guilt  and  bury  it 
in  the  depths  of  his  atonement.  Let  us  lay 
hold  of  the  righteousness  of  Christ,  and  clothe 
ourselves  with  it  in  the  Divine  presence  ;  and 


"  IT    IS    FINISHED."  293 

regarding  the  reconciliation,  with  God,  effected 
by  the  death  of  his  dear  Son,  as  only  the 
first  step  or  stage  of  the  Christian  salvation, 
let  us  throw  open  our  whole  mind  and  heart 
to  the  blessed  influences  that  Christ's  love, 
his  life,  his  sufferings,  his  death,  his  entire 
example  were  intended  to  exert  in  making  us 
less  selfish,  more  loving,  more  dutiful,  more 
thankful,  more  submissive,  more  holy. 

There  still  remain,  for  one  or  two  brief 
remarks,  these  last  words  of  our  Redeemer, — • 
"  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commit  my  spirit." 
The  words  are  borrowed  from  one  of  the 
Psalms.  Jesus  dies  with  a  passage  of  the 
old  Hebrew  Scriptures  on  his  lips,  only  he 
prefaces  the  words  by  the  epithet  so  familiar 
to  his  lips  and  heart,  "  Father."  In  the 
depth  of  his  bitter  anguish,  under  the  dark- 
ness of  momentary  desolation,  he  had  dropped 
this  phrase.  It  had  been  then,  "  My  God, 
my  God  !"  But  now,  once  more,  in  the  light 
that  shines  within,  around,  he  resumes  it,  and 
he  says,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I  commit 
my  spirit."     If  the  saying  which  went  before. 


294  "  IT   IS    FINISHED." 

"  It  is  finished,"  be  taken,  as  it  well  may  be, 
as  Christ's  last  word  of  farewell  to  the  world 
he  leaves  behind,  this  may  be  taken  as  his 
first  word  of  greeting  to  the  new  world  that 
he  is  about  to  enter.  New  world,  we  say,  for 
though,  as  the  Eternal  Son,  he  was  but  re- 
turning to  the  glory  that  he  had  with  the 
Father  before  the  world  was,  let  us  not  forget 
that  death  was  to  the  humanity  of  the  Lord, 
: — as  it  will  be  to  each  and  all  of  us, — an  en- 
trance upon  a  new  and  untried  state.  It 
seems  to  us  as  if,  in  these  last  words  of  our 
Elder  Brother,  it  was  that  nature  of  ours  he 
wore  which  breathed  itself  forth  in  our  hear- 
ing ;  that  human  nature  which,  when  the  hour 
of  departure  comes,  looks  out  with  trembling 
solicitude  into  the  world  of  spirits,  seeking 
for  some  one  there  into  whose  hands  the  de- 
parting spirit  may  confidingly  commit  itself 
In  the  "  It  is  finished,"  the  voice  of  the  great 
High  Priest,  the  Eternal  Son  of  the  Father, 
predominates.  In  the  "  Father,  into  thy 
hands  I  commit  my  spirit,"  is  it  not  the  voice 
of  the  man  Christ  Jesus  that  mainl}  salutes 


«  IT    IS   FINISHED."  295 

our  ear  ?  No  timidity,  indeed,  nor  fear,  nor 
any  such  trembling  awe  as  any  of  lis  might 
fitly  feel  in  dying.  Nothing  of  these  ;  not  a 
shadow  of  them  here  ;  yet  certainly  solemnity, 
concern,  the  sense  as  of  a  need  of  some  sup- 
port, some  upbearing  hand.  And  shall  we 
not  thank  our  Saviour,  that  not  only  has  he 
made  the  passage  before  us,  and  opened  for 
us,  in  doing  so,  the  gate  to  eternal  life,  but 
taught  us,  by  his  own  example,  not  to  wonder 
if  our  weak  human  nature,  as  it  stands  upon 
the  brink,  should  look  out  with  an  eager  soli- 
citude to  find  the  hands  into  which,  in  mak- 
ing the  great  transition,  it  may  throw  itself? 
And  where  shall  we  find  those  hands  ?  He 
found  them  in  the  hands  of  that  Father,  who 
at  all  times  had  been  so  well  pleased  with 
him.  We  find  them  in  Ms  hands  who  went 
thus  before  us  to  his  Father  and  our  Father, 
to  his  God  and  our  God.  He  too  found  them 
there  who  has  left  us  the  earliest  example 
how  a  true  Christian  may  and  ought  to  die. 
Considering  the  small  number  of  the  Lord's 
disciples,  we  may  believe  that  Stephen  was 


296  "IT    IS   FINISHED." 

not  only  the  first  of  the  Christian  martyrs,  but 
actually  the  first  after  the  crucifixion  who  fell 
asleep  in  Jesus.  Can  we  doubt  that  in  dying 
the  last  words  of  Jesus  were  in  Stephen's 
memory  ?  There  had  been  too  many  points  of 
resemblance  between  his  own  and  his  Master  s 
trial  and  condemnation,  for  Stephen  not  to 
have  the  close  of  the  Redeemer's  life  before 
his  mind.  His  dying  prayer  is  an  echo  of 
that  which  came  from  his  Master's  lips ;  the 
same,  yet  changed.  It  might  do  for  the  sin- 
less one  to  say,  "  Father,  into  thy  hands  I 
commit  my  spirit."  It  is  not  for  the  sinful  to 
take  up  at  once  and  appropriate  such  words ; 
so,  turning  to  Jesus,  the  dying  martyr  says, 
"  Lord  Jesus,  receive  my  spirit,"  in  that  sim- 
ple, fervent,  confiding  petition,  leaving  behind 
him,  for  all  ages,  the  pattern  of  a  sinner's 
dying  prayer,  modelled  upon  the  last  words  of 
the  dying  Saviour. 


XII. 

In  all  its  outward  form  and  circumstance, 
there  scarcely  could  have  been  a  lowlier  en- 
trance into  this  world  of  ours  than  that  made 
by  Jesus  Christ.  The  poorest  wandering 
gipsy's  chUd  has  seldom  had  a  meaner  birth. 
There  was  no  room  for  Mary  in  the  inn.  She 
brought  forth  her  first-born  son  amid  the 
beasts  of  the  stall,  and  she  laid  him  in  a 
manger.  But  was  that  birth — which,  though 
it  had  so  little  about  it  to  draw  the  notice  of 
man,  was  yet  the  greatest  that  this  earth  has 
ever  witnessed — to  pass  by  without  any  token 
of  its  greatness  given  ?  No  ;  other  eyes  than 
those  of   men  were   fixed    on   it,  and  other 

*  Matt,  xxvii.  51-54;   Mark  xv.  39;    Luke  xxiii.  47-49  ;   John 
xix.  Sl-37 


298  THE    ATTENDANT   MIRACLES. 

tongues  were  loosed  to  celebrate  it.  The 
glory  of  the  Lord  shone  around  the  shep- 
herds, and  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly  host, 
borrowing  for  a  time  the  speech  of  Canaan, 
filled  the  midnight  sky  with  their  praises,  as 
they  chanted,  "  Glory  to  God  in  the  highest, 
and  on  earth  peace,  goodwill  toward  men." 
Never  was  there  a  lowlier  cradle  than  that  in 
which  the  new-born  Redeemer  lay ;  but  over 
what  other  cradle  was  there  ever  such  a  birth- 
hymn  sung  ? 

And  as  with  the  birth,  so  also  with  the 
death  of  Jesus.  In  all  its  outward  form  and 
circumstance,  a  more  humiliating  death  than 
that  of  being  crucified  as  one  of  three  con- 
victed felons,  he  could  not  have  died.  There 
was  no  darker,  more  degrading  passage  through 
which  he  could  have  been  sent  forth  from 
among  the  living.  But  was  that  death  of  the 
Eternal  Son  of  God  to  have  no  outward  marks 
of  its  importance  imprinted  on  it  ?  Left  to 
man,  there  had  been  none ;  but  Heaven  will 
not  let  it  pass  unsignalized.  And  so,  at  mid- 
day the  darkness  came  and  settled  for  three 


THE    ATTENDANT   MIRACLES.  299 

hours  around  the  cross ;  and  when  at  the 
ninth  hour  Jesus  gave  up  the  ghost,  the  veil 
of  the  Temple  was  torn  in  twain  from  the  top 
to  the  bottom,  and  the  rocks  rent,  and  the 
graves  opened.  These  were  the  external  seals 
which  the  hand  of  the  Omnipotent  stamped 
upon  the  event,  proclaiming  its  importance. 
But  these  seals  were  also  symbols  ;  they  were 
more  than  mere  preternatural  indications  that 
this  was  no  common  death.  Each  in  its  way 
told  something  about  the  character  and  object 
of  this  death.  The  mystery  of  those  hidden 
sufferings  of  the  Redeemer's  spirit, — the  inner 
darkening  of  the  light  of  his  Father's  counte- 
nance,— stood  shadowed  forth  in  the  three 
hours'  darkness.  The  rending  of  the  veil  had 
a  meaning  of  its  own,  which  it  scarcely  needed 
an  apostle  to  interpret.  To  the  few  eyes  that 
witnessed  it,  it  must  have  been  a  most  myste- 
rious spectacle.  Jesus  died  at  the  third  hour 
after  mid-day;  the  very  hour  when  eager 
crowds  of  worshippers  would  be  thronging 
into  the  courts  of  the  Temple,  and  all  would 
be  preparing  for  the  evening  sacrifice.  Within 


300  THE   ATTENDANT   MIRACLES. 

the  Hol}'^  Place,  kindling  perhaps  the  many 
lights  of  the  golden  candlestick,  some  priests 
would  be  busy  before  the  inner  veil  which 
hung  between  them  and  the  Holy  of  Holies ; 
that  veil  no  thin,  old,  time-worn  piece  of  faded 
draper^'-,  but  fresh,  and  strong,  and  thickly 
woven,  for  they  renewed  it  year  by  year ; 
that  Holy  of  Holies — the  dark,  secluded 
apartment  within  which  lay  the  ark  of  the 
covenant,  with  the  cherubim  above  it  shadow- 
ing the  mercy-seat,  which  no  mortal  footstep 
was  permitted  to  invade,  save  that  of  the 
High  Priest  once  only  every  year.  How 
strange,  how  awful  to  the  ministering  priests, 
standing  before  that  veil,  to  feel  the  earth 
tremble  beiieath  their  feet,  and  to  see  the 
strong  veil  grasped,  as  if  by  two  unseen 
hands  of  superhuman  strength,  and  torn 
down  in  the  middle  from  tojD  to  bottom, — the 
glaring  light  of  day,  that  never,  for  long  cen- 
turies gone  by,  had  entered  there,  flung  into 
that  sacred  tenement,  and  all  its  mysteries 
laid  open  to  vulgar  gaze.  The  Holy  Ghost 
by  all  this  signified  that  while  as  yet  that  first 


THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  301 

tabernacle  was  standing,  the  way  into  the 
holiest,  the  access  to  God,  was  not  yet  made 
manifest;  but  now,  Christ  being  come,  to 
offer  himself  without  spot  to  God,  neither  by 
the  blood  of  goats  nor  calves,  but  by  his  own 
blood,  to  enter  into  the  true  Holy  of  Holies, 
—even  as  he  died  on  Calvary  that  veil  was 
rent  asunder  thus  within  the  Temple  to  teach 
us  that  a  new  and  living  way,  open  to  all,  ac- 
cessible to  all,  had  been  consecrated  for  us 
through  the  rending  of  the  Redeemer's  flesh, 
that  we  might  have  boldness  to  enter  into  the 
holiest,  and  might  draw  near,  each  of  us,  to 
God,  with  a  new  heart  and  in  full  assurance 
of  faith.  Little  of  all  this  may  those  few 
priests  have  known  who  stood  that  day,  gaz- 
ing with  awe-struck  w^onder  upon  that  work- 
ing of  the  Divine  and  unseen  hand, — to  them 
a  sign  of  terror,  rather  than  a  symbol  of  what 
the  death  on  Calvary  had  done.  We  read, 
however,  that  not  long  afterwards — within  a 
year — many  priests  became  obedient  unto  the 
faith ;  and  it  pleases  us  to  think  that  among 
those  who,  from  the  inner  heart  of  Judaism, 


302  THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES. 

from  the  stronghold  of  its  priestly  caste,  were 
converted  unto  Christ,  some  of  them  may 
have  been  numbered  whose  first  movement  in 
that  direction  was  given  them  as  they  wit- 
nessed that  rending  of  the  veil,  that  laying 
OPEN  of  the  Most  Holy  Place. 

"And  the  earth  did  quake:  and  the  rocks 
rent;  and  the  graves  were  opened" — the  main 
office,  let  us  believe,  of  that  earthquake  which 
accompanied  or  immediately  followed  upon  the 
death  of  Christ, — not  to  strike  terror  into  the 
hearts  of  men ;  not  to  herald  judgments  upon 
this  earth ;  not  to  swallow  up  the  living  in  its 
opening  jaws ;  no,  but  to  shake  the  domains 
of  death;  to  break  the  stony  fetters  of  the 
dead ;  to  lay  open  the  graves,  out  of  which 
the  bodies  of  the  saints  might  arise.  It  seems 
clear  enough,  from  the  words  which  Matthew 
;uses — who  is  the  only  one  of  the  Evangelists 
who  alludes  to  the  event, — that  they  did  not 
come  out  of  their  graves  till  the  morning  of 
our  Lord's  own  resurrection.  It  is  scarcely 
conceivable  that  they  had  been  re-animated 
before  that  time,  and  lain  aw^ake  in  their  graves 


THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  303 

till  his  rising  called  them  from  their  tombs. 
Then  they  did  arise,  and  went  into  the  Holy 
City,  and  appeared  unto  many, — one  cer- 
tainly, of  the  most  mysterious  incidents  which 
attended  the  death  and  resurrection  of  the 
Saviour,  suggesting  many  a  question:  Who 
were  they  that  thus  arose  ?  were  they  of  the 
recently  dead,  recognized  by  loving  relatives 
in  the  Holy  City,  or  were  they  chosen  from 
the  buried  of  many  bygone  generations  ?  Did 
they  return  to  their  sepulchres,  or  did  the 
grave  never  more  close  over  them  ?  Did  they 
after  a  brief  appearance  in  the  Holy  City, 
pass  into  the  heavenly  Jerusalem  ?  or  did 
they  linger  upon  this  earth,  to  be  the  com- 
panions of  our  Lord  during  those  forty  days, 
so  small  a  portion  of  which  is  occupied  by 
Christ's  appearances  to  his  disciples,  the  rest 
spent  where  and  how  we  know  not ;  and  did 
they,  that  ministry  to  Jesus  over,  go  up  with 
him  into  the  heavenly  places?  AU  about 
them  is  hid  in  the  deepest  obscurity.  Like 
shadows  they  come,  like  shadows  they  depart. 
This,  however,  their  presence  told,  that  the 


304  THE    ATTENDANT   MIRACliES. 

voice  which  from  the  cross  cried,  "  It  is 
finishetl,"  went  where  sound  of  human  voice 
had  never  gone  before,  and  did  what  sound  of 
liuman  voice  had  never  done.  It  was  heard 
among  the  dead ;  it  stirred  the  heavy  sleep- 
ers there,  and  piercing  the  stony  sepulchre, 
went  quivering  into  ears  long  sealed  against 
all  sound.  And  when  the  third  morning 
dawned,  these  bodies  of  the  saints  arose,  to 
complete  as  it  were  the  pledge  and  promise  of 
the  general  resurrection  of  the  dead  which  our 
Lord's  own  rising  carried  with  it,  and  having 
done  that  office,  silently  and  mysteriously 
withdrew.  You  may  have  sometimes  seen  a 
day  in  early  spring,  stolen  from  the  coming 
summer,  a  day  of  sunshine  so  bright  and 
warm,  of  air  so  bland,  of  breeze  so  gentle, 
that,  as  if  fancying  that  her  resurrection-time 
had  come,  dead  nature  woke,  buds  began  to 
burst,  flower-leaves  to  unfold,  and  birds  to 
sing, — aU  to  be  shut  up  again  in  death,  as  the 
bleak  withering  winds  of  days  that  followed 
swept  across  the  plain.  Even  into  such  a  day 
did  the  appearance  of  these  old  tenants  of  the 


THE   ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  305 

grave  turn  tliat  of  our  Lord's  resurrection, 
lightening  and  enriching  it  with  the  promise 
of  the  time  when  all  that  are  in  their  graves 
shall  hear  Christ's  voice,  and  his  full  and  final 
victory  over  der.th  and  the  grave  shall  be  ac- 
complished. 

Mark  the  Evangelist,  to  whom  we  are  in- 
debted for  so  many  minute  and  graphic  inci- 
dents in  the  gospel  history,  tells  us  that  at 
the  moment  when  Christ  expired,  the  Roman 
officer  in  charge  was  standing  over  against 
him,  within  a  few  yards  of  the  cross,  gazing 
on  the  face  of  the  crucified.  He  had  halted 
there  as  the  darkness  rolled  away.  He  heard 
that  loud  and  piercing  cry,  as  of  one  forsaken, 
come  from  the  lips  of  Jesus.  He  saw  the 
change  come  over  the  Saviour's  countenance, 
the  hght  that  spread  over  those  pallid  features, 
the  joy  that  beamed  from  those  uplifted  eyes. 
Another  and  a  louder  cry, — not  now  the  cry 
as  of  one  sinking  in  conflict,  but  of  one  rejoi- 
cing in  victory, — when  suddenly  Jesus  bows 
his  head  and  gives  up  the  ghost;  that  mo- 
ment, too,  the  earthquake   shook  the   earth, 


806      THE  ATTENDANT  MIRACLES. 

and  the  cross  of  Jesus  trembled  before  the 
Roman's  eyes.  The  shaking  earth,  the  trem 
bling  cross,  impressed  him  less,  as  Mark  lets 
us  know,  than  the  loud  cry  so  instantly  fol- 
lowed by  death.  He  had,  perhaps,  been  pres- 
ent at  other  crucifixions,  and  knew  well  how 
long  the  band  he  ruled  was  ordinarily  required 
to  watch  the  crucified.  But  he  had  never 
seen,  he  had  never  known,  he  had  never  heard 
of  a  man  dying  upon  a  cross  within  six  hours. 
He  had  seen  other  men  expire ;  had  watched 
weak  nature  as  it  wanes  away  at  death — the 
voice  sinking  into  feebleness  with  its  last  ef- 
forts at  articulation, — but  he  had  never  heard 
a  man  in  dying  speak  in  tones  like  these. 
And  so  impressed  was  he  with  what  he  saw 
and  heard,  that  instantly  and  spontaneously 
he  exclaimed,  "  Truly  this  man  was  the  Son 
of  God  !"  Foreigner  and  Gentile  as  he  was, 
he  may  have  attached  no  higher  meaning  to 
the  epithet  than  Pilate  did  when  he  said  to 
Jesus,  "Art  thou  then  the  Son  of  God?" 
This  much,  however,  he  meant  to  say,  that 
truly  and  to  his  judgment  this  Jesus  was  more 


THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  307 

than  human — was  divine — was  that  very  Son 
of  God,  whatever  this  might  mean,  which 
these  Jews  had  condemned  him  for  claiming 
to  be.  Such  was  the  faith  so  quickly  kindled 
in  this  Gentile  breast.  The  Cross  is  early 
giving  tokens  of  its  power.  It  lays  hold  of 
the  dying  thief,  and  opens  to  him  the  gates  of 
Paradise.  It  lays  hold  of  this  Centurion,  and 
works  in  him  a  faith  which,  let  us  hope,  deep- 
ened into  a  trust  in  Jesus  as  his  Saviour. 
From  such  unlikely  quarters  came  the  two  tes- 
timonies borne  to  the  Lord's  divinity  the  day 
he  died. 

The  Centurion  speaks  of  him  as  one  already 
dead.  The  pale  face  and  the  drooping  head 
tell  all  the  lookers-on  that  he  has  breathed 
his  last.  The  great  interest  of  the  day  is 
over ;  the  crowd  breaks  up ;  group  after 
group  returning  to  Jerusalem,  in  very  differ- 
ent mood  and  temper  from  that  in  which  they 
had  come  out  a  few  hours  before.  It  had 
been  little  more  at  first  than  an  idle  curiosity 
which  had  drawn  many  of  those  onlookers 
that  morning  from  their  dwellings.     Cherish- 


308  THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES 

ing,  perhaps,  no  particular  ill-will  to  Jesus, 
they  had  joined  the  procession  on  its  way  to 
Calvary.  They  gather  by  the  way  that  this 
Jesus  has  been  convicted  as  a  pretender,  who 
had  impiously  claimed  to  be  their  king,  their 
Christ.  They  see  how  irritated  the  High 
Priests  and  their  followers  are  at  him.  It  is 
an  unusual  thing  for  these  magnates  of  the 
people  to  come  out,  as  they  now  are  doing, 
to  attend  a  public  execution.  There  must 
surely  be  something  peculiarly  criminal  in  this 
Jesus,  against  whom  their  enmity  is  so  bit- 
ter. Soon  these  new  comers  catch  the  spirit 
that  their  rulers  have  breathed  into  the  crowd, 
and  for  the  first  three  hours  they  heartily 
chime  in  with  the  others,  and  keep  up  their 
mockery  of  the  crucified.  But  from  the  mo- 
ment that  the  darkness  falls  upon  them,  what 
a  change  !  There  they  stand,  silently  peering 
through  the  gloom  ;  no  jest  nor  laughter  now, 
nor  strife  of  mocking  tongues.  Upon  that 
cross,  but  dimly  seen,  their  eyes  are  fixed. 
The  wonder  grows  as  to  how  all  this  shall  end. 
It  ends  with  those  prodigies  that  accompany 


THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  309 

the  death.  Appalled  by  these,  they  smite 
upon  their  breasts — as  Easterns  do  in  pres- 
ence of  all  superhuman  power — and  make 
their  way  back  to  their  homes  ;  no  noisy, 
shouting  rabble,  but  each  man  silent,  and  full 
of  thought  and  awe.  Who  or  what,  then, 
could  that  Jesus  be  whom  they  had  seen  die 
such  a  death, — at  whose  death  the  whole 
frame  of  nature  seemed  to  quiver  ?  What- 
ever he  was,  he  was  not  what  their  rulers  had 
told  them.  No  false,  deceitful  man,  no  im- 
pious pretender.  Was  he  then  indeed  their 
Christ,  their  king  ?  They  got  the  answer  to 
those  questions  a  few  weeks  later,  when  Peter 
preached  to  that  great  company  on  the  day 
of  Pentecost ;  and  may  we  not  believe  that 
among  those  who  listened  to  the  great  Apos- 
tle on  that  occasion,  and  to  whom  he  spake 
as  to  the  very  men  who,  with  wicked  hands, 
had  slain  the  Lord  of  glory,  there  were  not  a 
few  of  those  who  now  returned  to  Jerusalem 
from  Calvary,  impressed  and  half-convinced, 
waiting  but  the  work  of  the  Spirit  to  turn 


310      THE  ATTENDANT  MIRACLES. 

them  into  true  and  faithful  followers  of  the 
Crucified  ? 

Such  was  the  impression  made  upon  the 
Roman  officer,  and  on  a  section  of  the  by- 
standers. But  the  High  Priests  and  their 
minions,  the  true  crucifiers  of  the  Lord, — 
what  impression  has  all  which  has  happened 
thus  at  Calvar}'-  made  on  them  ?  Has  it  stir- 
red any  doubt,  has  it  awakened  any  compunc- 
tion, has  it  allayed  their  fears  or  quenched 
their  hate  ?  No  ;  they  witness  all  these  won- 
ders, and  remain  hard  and  unrelenting  as  at 
the  first.  Speaking  of  that  obduracy,  which 
stood  out  against  all  the  demonstrations  of 
the  Lord's  Divinity,  St.  Gregory  exclaims, 
"  The  heavens  knew  him,  and  forthwith  sent 
out  a  star  and  a  company  of  angels  to  sing 
his  birth.  The  sea  knew  him,  and  made  itself 
a  way  to  be  trodden  by  his  feet ;  the  earth 
knew  him,  and  trembled  at  his  dying ;  the 
sun  knew  him,  and  hid  the  rays  of  its  light ; 
the  rocks  knew  him,  for  they  were  rent  in 
twain  ;  Hades  knew  him,  and  gave  up  the 
dead  it  had  received.     But  though  the  sense- 


THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  311 

less  elements  perceived  him  to  be  their  Lord, 
the  hearts  of  the  unbelieving  Jews  knew  him 
not  as  God,  and,  harder  than  the  very  rocks, 
were  not  rent  by  repentance." 

The  only  effect  upon  the  rulers  of  the 
Jewish  people  of  the  sudden  and  unexpected 
death  of  Jesus  was  to  set  them  thinking  how 
the  crosses  and  bodies  which  hung  upon  them 
might  most  speedily  be  removed.  Their  own 
Jewish  code  forbade  that  the  body  of  one 
hung  upon  a  tree  should  remain  suspended 
over  a  single  night :  "  His  body  shall  not  re- 
main all  night  upon  the  tree,  but  thou  shalt 
in  any  wise  bury  him  that  day,  that  thy  land 
be  not  defiled."*  As  crucifixion  was  a  mode 
of  punishment  originally  unknown  among  the 
Jews,  this  command  refers  to  the  case  of  those 
who,  after  death  by  stoning  or  strangulation, 
were  hung  upon  a  gibbet.  The  Roman  law 
and  practice  were  different.  Crucifixion  was 
the  mode  of  death  to  which  slaves  and  the 
greater  criminals  were  doomed.  In  ordinary 
circumstances,  the    bodies    of  the    crucified 

*  See  Deut.  xxL 


312  THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES. 

were  suffered  to  hang  upon  the  cross  till  the 
action  of  the  elements,  at  times  otherwise 
aided  and  accelerated,  wasted  them  away. 
Even  when  sepulture  was  allowed,  it  was 
thought  profitable  for  the  ends  of  justice  that 
for  some  days  the  frightful  spectacle  should 
be  exposed  to  the  public  eye.  In  no  case 
under  the  Roman  rule  did  burial  take  place 
on  the  very  day  of  the  execution.  If  that 
rule  were  in  this  instance  to  be  broken,  it 
must  be  under  the  special  leave  and  direction 
of  Pilate.  Besides,  however,  the  natural  de- 
sire that  their  own  rather  than  the  Roman 
method  of  dealing  with  the  crucified  should 
be  followed,  there  was  another  and  more 
special  reason  why  the  Jews  desired  that  the 
bodies  should  as  quickly  as  possible  be  re- 
moved. Next  day  was  the  Sabbath ;  no  com- 
mon Sabbath  either — the  Sabbath  of  the  great 
Paschal  festival.  It  began  at  sunset.  Only 
an  hour  or  two  remained.  It  would  be  offen- 
sive, ill-ominous,  if  on  a  day  so  sacred  three 
bodies  hanging  upon  crosses  should  be  ex- 
hibited so  near  the  Holy  City.     It  would  dis- 


THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  313 

turb,  defile  the  services  of  the  holy  day. 
Besides,  who  could  tell  what  effect  upon  the 
changeful,  excitable  multitude  this  spectacle 
of  Jesus  might  have,  if  kept  so  long  before 
their  eyes?  A  deputation  is  despatched, 
therefore,  to  Pilate,  to  entreat  him  to  give 
orders  that  means  may  be  taken  to  expedite 
the  death  by  crucifixion,  and  have  the  bodies 
removed.  Pilate  accedes  to  the  request;  the 
necessary  order  is  forwarded  to  Calvary,  and 
the  soldiers  proceed  in  the  ordinary  way  to 
execute  it.  They  break  the  legs  of  both  the 
others  ;  they  pass  Jesus  by.  There  is  every 
sign,  indeed,  that  he  is  already  dead,  but  why 
not  make  his  death  thus  doubly  sure  ?  Perhaps, 
even  over  the  spirits  of  those  rough  and  hard- 
ened men,  the  Saviour's  looks  and  words,  the 
manner  of  his  death,  the  darkness  and  the 
earthquake,  which  they  connected  in  some 
way  with  him,  may  have  caused  a  feeling 
of  awe  to  creep,  restraining  them  from  sub- 
jecting him  to  that  rough  handling  which  they 
were  ready  enough  to  give  to  the  others. 
However  this  may  have  been,  the  shield  of 

14 


314  THE    ATTENDANT   MIRACLES. 

that  prophecy, — "  A  bone  of  him  shall  not  be 
broken,"  guarded  his  limbs  from  their  rude 
and  crushing  strokes. 

One,  indeed,  of  the  soldiers  is  not  to  be  re- 
strained, and  to  make  sure  that  this  seeming 
death  is  real,  he  lifts  his  spear  as  he  passes 
by,  and  thrusts  it  into  the  Redeemer's  side ; 
a  strong,  rude  thrust,  sufficient  of  itself  to 
have  caused  death,  inflicting  a  wide,  deep 
wound,  that  left  behind  such  a  scar,  that  Jesus 
could  say  to  Thomas  afterwards,  "  Reach  hither 
thy  hand,  and  thrust  it  into  my  side."  From 
that  wound  there  flowed  out  blood  and  water, 
in  such  quantity,  that  the  outflow  attracted 
the  special  notice  of  John,  who  was  standing 
at  some  distance  from  the  cross ;  the  blood  and 
the  water  so  distinct  and  distinguishable  from 
one  another,  that  this  observer  could  not  be 
deceived,  and  thought  it  right  to  leave  behind 
him  this  peculiarly  emphatic  testimony  :  "  He 
that  saw  it  bare  record,  and  his  record  is 
true ;  and  he  knoweth  that  he  saith  true,  that 
ye  might  believe."  It  has  been  thought  that 
John  was  led  to  put  such  stress  upon  tliis  in- 


THE    ATTENDANT    mRACLES.  315 

cident  of  the  crucifixion,  and  to  pi  ess  into 
such  prominence  his  own  testimony  as  an  eye- 
witness to  its  reality,  on  account  of  the  con- 
vincing refutation  thus  afforded  of  two  strange 
heresies  that  sprung  up  early  in  the  Church  : 
the  first,  that  Jesus  had  never  really  died 
upon  the  cross,  but  only  passed  into  a  swoon, 
from  which  he  afterwards  revived ;  and  the 
second,  that  it  was  not  a  real  human  body  of 
flesh  and  blood,  but  only  the  appearance  of 
one  that  was  suspended  on  the  cross.  It  may 
have  been  that  the  Evangelist  had  these  beliefs 
in  view.  But  whatever  was  his  immediate 
object  in  testifying  so  particularly  and  so  earn- 
estly to  the  fact,  it  only  puts  that  fact  so 
much  the  more  clearly  now  before  our  eyes, 
authorizing  us  to  assume  it  as  placed  beyond 
all  doubt,  that  within  an  hour  or  so  after 
Christ's  death — for  it  could  not  have  been 
much  longer,  when  a  deep  incision  was  made 
in  the  side  of  the  Redeemer,  there  visibly 
flowed  forth  a  copious  stream  of  blood  and 
water.  Is  that  fact  of  any  moment,  does  it 
give  any  clue  to,  or  throw  any  light  upon  the 


316      THE  ATTENDANT  MIRACLES. 

proximate  or  physical  cause  of  the  death  of 
Christ?  The  answer  to  these  questions  we 
reserve  for  our  next  Lecture. 

Meanwhile,  let  us  give  a  moment  or  two 
more  to  reflection  upon  that  strange  variety  of 
impression  and  effect  which  the  crucifixion  of 
our  Lord  had  upon  the  original  spectators. 
There  were  those  whom  that  spectacle  plunged 
into  a  despondency  bordering  on  despair. 
Mary,  the  mother  of  our  Lord,  was  not  able 
to  bear  that  sight,  and  the  love  of  her  Divine 
Son  went  forth,  and  withdrew  her  early  from 
the  trial  of  seeing  him  expire.  His  other  ac- 
quaintance, and  the  women  that  followed  him 
from  Galilee,  stood  afar  off,  beholding;  half 
ashamed  and  half  afraid  ;  with  something  of 
hope,  with  more  of  fear ;  lost  in  wonder  that 
he,  about  whom  they  had  been  cherishing 
such  grand,  yet  false  and  earthly  expecta- 
tions, should  suffer  himself,  or  should  be  suf- 
fered by  that  Father — of  whom  he  had  so 
often  spoken  as  hearing  him  always,  who  had 
himself  declared  that  he  was  at  all  times  well 
Dleased  with  him — to  die  such  a  death  as  this. 


THE   ATTENDANT   MIRACLES.  317 

As  the  darkness  fell,  perhaps  a  new  hope 
sprung  up  within  some  of  their  breasts.  Was 
Jesus  about  to  use  that  darkness  as  a  veil  be- 
hind which  he  would  withdraw  himself,  as  he 
had  withdrawn  himself  from  those  who  were 
about  to  cast  him  from  the  rocky  height  at 
Nazareth  ?  Had  he  gone  up  to  that  cross  to 
work  there  the  greatest  of  his  miracles  ?  and 
was  he  in  very  deed  about  to  meet  the  taunt 
of  his  enemies,  and  come  down  from  the  cross 
that  they  might  believe  in  him  ?  Alas !  if 
any  such  hope  arose,  the  ninth  hour  quenched 
it ;  and  when  they  saw  him  draw  his  latest 
breath,  this  band  of  friends  and  followers  of 
Jesus  turned  their  backs  on  Calvary,  with 
slow,  sad  footsteps,  to  return,  dispirited  and 
disconsolate,  to  their  homes.  Mainly  this  was 
owing  to  the  strength  of  that  prejudice  which 
had  so  early  taken  such  strong  possession  of 
their  minds,  that  the  kingdom  which  their 
new  Master  was  to  set  up  was  a  temporal  one. 
To  that  prejudice  so  sudden  and  so  overwhelm- 
ing a  shock  was  given  by  the  crucifixion,  that, 
etunned   and  stupefied   by  it,  these   simple- 


318  THE   ATTENDANT   MIRACLES. 

minded  followers  of  Jesus  were  for  a  time 
unable  to  recall,  and  unprepared  to  believe, 
his  own  predictions  as  to  his  death.  Upon 
the  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  the  Chief  Priests 
and  rulers  of  the  people,  the  six  hours  of  the 
crucifixion  had,  as  we  have  seen,  none  other 
than  a  hardening  effect.  The  gentleness,  the 
patience,  the  forgiving  spirit,  the  thoughtful- 
ness  for  others,  the  sore  trouble  of  his  own 
spirit,  the  supernatural  darkness,  the  return- 
ing light,  the  sudden  and  sublime  decease,  the 
reeling  earth,  the  opening  graves ; — all  these, 
which  might  have  moved  them,  had  they  not 
been  possessed  by  the  one  great  passion  of 
quenching  for  ever  the  hated  pretensions  of 
this  Nazarene — have  no  other  influence  upon 
their  spirits  than  quickening  their  ingenuity 
to  contrive  how  best,  most  quickly,  and  most 
securely,  they  can  accomplish  their  design. 
And  these  are  they  of  all  that  motley  crowd, 
who  knew  the  most,  and  made  the  greatest 
profession  of  religion  !  These  are  the  men 
who  would  not  that  morning  cross  the  thresh- 
old of  Pilate's  dwelling,  lest  they  might  unfit 


THE  ATTENDANT  MIRACLES.      319 

themselves  for  the  morrow's  duties  withm  the 
Temple  !  These  are  the  men  who  camiot  bear 
the  thought  that  the  services  of  their  great 
Paschal  Sabbath  should  be  polluted  by  the 
proximity  of  the  three  crosses  of  Golgotha ! 
They  can  spill,  without  compunction,  the 
blood  of  the  innocent.  They  can  take  that 
blood  upon  themselves  and  upon  their  chil- 
dren, but  they  cannot  suffer  the  sight  of  it  to 
offend  their  eye  as  they  go  up  to  worship  upon 
Mount  Zion.  These  are  the  men  who,  in 
their  deep  self-ignorance,  in  their  proud  and 
boastful  spirit,  were  wont  to  say,  "  If  we  had 
been  in  the  days  of  our  fathers,  we  would  not 
have  been  partakers  with  them  in  the  blood 
of  the  prophets."  These  are  the  men  whose 
whole  character  and  conduct  are  suggestive  of 
the  likenesses  to  themselves  that  have  arisen 
in  every  age  of  the  church,  one  of  whose  noted 
peculiarities  is  ever  this,  that  to  wound  their 
pride,  or  expose  in  any  way  their  hollow 
pretensions,  is  sure  to  draw  down  on  all  who 
attempt  the  dangerous  office  the  very  same 


320  THE   ATTENDANT   MIRACLES. 

malignity  of  dislike  and  persecution  that 
nailed  our  Saviour  to  his  cross. 

Upon  many  of  the  crowd  which  stood  for 
those  six  hours  around  the  cross,  the  events 
that  transpired  there  appear  to  have  produced 
that  surprise,  solemnity,  alarm,  and  subdued 
state  of  feeling,  they  were  so  fitted  to  pro- 
duce on  the  bulk  of  mankind.  We  have 
already  ventured  to  express  the  hope  that, 
with  not  a  few  of  them,  what  they  saw  and 
heard  prepared  their  minds  and  opened  their 
hearts  to  receive  the  good  seed  which,  scat' 
tered  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  by  apostolic 
hands,  was  so  watered  with  the  influences  of 
the  Holy  Spirit. 

But  are  we  wrong  in  imagining,  of  another 
and  perhaps  still  larger  proportion  of  those 
who  returned,  beating  their  breasts,  to  Jeru- 
salem, that  a  few  days,  or  a  few  weeks, 
brought  them  down  to  their  ordinary  and 
natural  condition  of  indifference  and  uncon- 
cern ?  Yes,  they  would  say,  that  was  a  won- 
derful forenoon  ;  there  was  a  strange  concur- 
rence of  striking  things  about  the  close  of 


THE    ATTENDANT    MIRACLES.  321 

that  strange  man's  life  ;  but  as  to  any  further 
inquiry  after  him — the  lending  their  ears  to 
that  gospel  which  set  him  forth  as  crucified  to 
redeem  their  souls  from  death,  and  cover,  by 
his  mediation,  the  multitude  of  their  sins — 
they  became  too  callous,  the  world  got  too 
strong  a  hold  of  them,  to  admit  of  their  giv- 
ing any  further  or  more  earnest  heed.  Have 
not  these,  too,  their  likenesses  among  us  ? 
men  capable  of  strong  but  temporary  impres- 
sions. Bring  them  to  Golgotha,  set  up  the 
cross  before  them,  let  them  see  the  Saviour 
die,  and  their  breasts  may  own  a  sentiment 
akin  to  that  which  affected  so  many  originally 
at  Calvary :  but  they  are  morning  clouds 
those  feelings,  it  is  an  early  dew  this  soften- 
ing of  their  hearts  ;  let  the  bright  sun  rise, 
the  fresh  breeze  blow ;  let  the  day,  with  so 
many  calls  to  business  and  pleasure  come, 
and  those  clouds  vanish, — this  dew  disap- 
pears. And  yet  the  cross  was  not  to  be  lifted 
up  in  vain.  It  hardened  the  Pharisees,  it 
dispirited  the  disciples,  it  awed  the  multitude  ; 
but  it  saved  the  penitent  thief,  and  it  con- 

14* 


322  THE   ATTENDANT    MIRACLES. 

vinced  the  unprejudiced  Centurion.  "  I,"  said 
the  Lord  himself,  contemplating  beforehand 
the  triumph  of  his  cross, — "  I,  if  I  be  lifted 
up,  will  draw  all  men  unto  me."  And  when 
he  was  lifted  up,  even  before  he  died,  and  in 
the  very  act  of  dying,  he  drew  to  him  that 
Gentile  and  that  Jew,  each  one  the  leader  of 
a  multitude  that  no  man  may  number,  upon 
whom  the  power  of  that  attraction  has  since 
acted.  God  grant  that  upon  all  our  spirits 
this  power  may  come,  drawing  us  to  Jesus 
now,  and  lifting  us  at  last  to  heaven. 


XIII. 

Had  no  one  interfered,  the  body  of  our 
Lord  had  been  taken  down  by  the  soldiers 
from  the  cross,  by  their  cold  and  careless 
hands  to  be  conveyed  away  to  one  of  those 
separate  burying-places  reserved  for  those 
who  had  suffered  the  extreme  penalty  of  the 
law.  Not  unfrequently,  in  such  cases,  friends 
or  relatives  came  forward  to  crave  the  body 
at  the  hands  of  the  authorities,  that  they 
might  give  it  a  more  becoming  burial.  There 
was  but  one  exception,  the  case  of  those 
whose  crime  was  treason  against  the  State, — 
the  very  crune  for  which  Christ  had,  nomin- 
ally at  least,  been  condemned.  In  that  in- 
stance the  mode  of  disposal  of  the  body  pre- 

*  John  xix.  33-35 ;  Mark  xv.  42-45. 


324  THE   PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

scribed  by  law  was  rarely  if  ever  departed 
from.  But  where  are  there  any  friends  or 
relatives  of  Jesus  in  condition  hopefully  to  in- 
terfere ?  That  small  band  of  his  acquaint- 
ance, which  has  stood  throughout  the  cruci- 
fixion beholding  it  afar  off,  is  composed 
principally  of  women.  John,  indeed,  is  there, 
a  witness  of  the  closing  scene,  and  of  the  pre- 
paration made  for  the  removal  of  the  bodies. 
But  was  Pilate,  to  whom  application  must  of 
course  be  made,  likely  to  listen  to  any  peti- 
tion that  he  might  present  ?  John  knew 
something  of  the  High  Priest,  but  nothing 
of  the  Roman  Governor.  There  was  every 
thing  in  fact  to  discourage  him  from  making 
any  application  in  that  quarter,  even  if  the 
idea  of  doing  so  had  occurred  to  him.  But  it 
is  most  unlikely  that  it  had.  For  what  could 
John,  or  the  disciples  generally,  have  done 
with  the  body  of  their  Master  though  they 
had  got  it  into  their  hands  ?  It  must  be 
buried  quickly,-  -within  an  hour  or  so.  And 
where  could  these  Galilean  strangers  find  a 
grave  at  Jerusalem  to  lay  it  in,  where  but  in 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  325 

some  exposed  and  public  place  of  sepulture, 
unsuitable  for  the  destiny  in  store  for  it  ? 

At  the  fitting  time,  the  fit  instrument  ap- 
pears. Joseph  of  Arimathea,  a  rich  man,  an 
honorable  councillor,  a  member  of  the  Sanhe- 
drim well  known  as  such  to  Pilate,  has  either 
himself  been  present  at  the  crucifixion,  or 
hears  how  matters  stand.  Shall  the  body  of 
Jesus  pass  into  the  rough  hands  of  these 
Roman  soldiers,  and  be  dragged  by  them  to  a 
dishonored  burial  ?  Not  if  he  can  hinder  it. 
He  has  a  new  sepulchre  of  his  own,  close  by 
the  very  place  where  Christ  has  died,  whose 
very  nearness  to  the  spot  suggests  to  him  how 
suitable  a  place  it  would  be  for  so  sacred  a 
deposit.  Joseph  goes  instantly  to  Pilate,  and 
boldly  asks  that  the  body  may  be  given  to 
him.  Pilate  makes  no  difficulty  regarding  the 
alleged  crime  of  Jesus.  He  never  had  be- 
lieved that  Christ  was  guilty  of  treason 
against  Csesar's  government;  does  not  now 
act  on  any  such  assumption.  But  Joseph  has 
told  him  something  about  the  time  and  man- 
ner of  the  Sav'our  s  death  which  he  had  not 


326  THE    PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

heard  before,  which  greatly  amazes  and  in 
duces  him  to  hesitate.  Those  Jews  who  had 
come  to  him  a  short  time  before,  with  the  re- 
quest that  he  would  issue  an  order  that  the 
bones  of  the  three  might  be  broken  and  their 
bodies  removed,  must  have  come  to  him  after 
the  three  hours'  darkness,  after  the  death  of 
Christ.  But  they  had  told  him  nothing  about 
that  death.  They  had  spoken  as  if  the  same 
means  for  exjDediting  their  decease  had  to  be 
taken  with  all  the  three.  Now,  for  the  first 
time,  he  hears  that  Jesus  had,  even  then, 
breathed  his  last ;  had  died  just  as  that  mys- 
terious darkness,  which  had  troubled  Pilate  as 
it  had  troubled  the  crowd  at  Golgotha,  had 
rolled  away ;  as  that  earthquake,  which  had 
shaken  every  dwelling  in  Jerusalem,  had  been 
felt  within  his  residence.  Pilate  will  not  be- 
lieve it, — can  scarcely  credit  Joseph's  story, — 
must  have  a  thing  so  strange  attested  upon 
better  testimony.  Waiving,  in  the  meantime, 
all  answer  to  Joseph's  request,  he  sends  for 
the  Centurion,  who,  doubtless,  told  him  all 
that  he  had  witnessed;  told  him  about  the 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  327 

loud  voice,  and  the  immediately  succeeding 
death ;  told  him  what  raised  in  the  eyes  of 
these  two  Romans,  even  to  the  height  of  a 
miracle,  a  death  like  this. 

We  should  understand  their  feelings  better 
were  we  as  familiar  as  they  were  with  the 
common  course  of  things  at  a  crucifixion.  It 
is  now  fifteen  hundred  years  since  this  mode 
of  punishment  ceased  to  be  practised  in 
Christendom  ;  it  was  discontinued  because  of 
the  sacredness,  the  spiritual  glory  which 
Christ's  crucifixion  had  thrown  around  it. 
With  eyes  unfamiliar  with  its  details,  yet 
with  imaginations  that  delighted  to  picture  its 
cruelties  and  horrors,  the  priesthood  of  the 
middle  ages  put  these  materials  into  the  hands 
of  poets  and  painters,  out  of  which  the  popu- 
lar conceptions  of  the  erection  of  the  cross, 
and  the  sufferings  on  the  cross,  and  the  taking 
down  from  the  cross,  have  for  so  long  a  time 
been  drawn.  There  is  much  in  these  concep- 
tions, that  by  using  the  means  of  information 
which  we  now  possess,  we  can  assure  our- 
selves is  incorrect.     The  cross   was  no   such 


328  THE    PHYSICAL   CAUSE   OF 

elevated  structure  as  we  see  it  sometimes 
represented,  needing  ladders  to  be  applied  to 
get  at  the  suspended  body.  It  was  seldom 
more  than  a  foot  or  two  higher  than  the  man  it 
bore ;  neither  was  the  whole  weight  of  his  body 
borne  upon  the  nails  which  pierced  the  hands. 
Such  a  position  of  painful  suspension,  causing 
such  a  strain  upon  all  the  muscles  of  the  up- 
per extremities,  would  have  added  greatly  to 
the  sufferings  of  the  victim,  and  brought  them 
to  a  much  speedier  close.  The  cross,  in  every 
instance,  was  furnished  with  a  small  piece  of 
wood  projecting  from  the  upright  post  or  beam, 
astride  which  the  crucified  sat,  and  which  bore 
the  chief  weight  of  his  body.  The  conse- 
quence of  this  arrangement  was,  that  crucifix- 
ion was  a  much  more  lingering  kind  of  death, 
and,  in  its  earlier  stages,  a  much  less  excru- 
ciating one  than  we  are  apt  to  imagine,  or  than 
otherwise  it  would  have  been.  As  there  was 
but  little  loss  of  blood, — the  nails  that  pierced 
the  extremities  touching  no  large  bloodvessel, 
and  closing  the  wounds  they  made, — the  death 
which  followed  resulted  from  the  processes  of 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  329 

bodily  exhaustion  and  irritation;  ant.  these 
were  so  slow,  that  in  no  case,  where  the  per- 
son crucified  was  in  ordinary  health  and  vigor, 
did  they  terminate  within  twelve  hours.  Al- 
most invariably  he  survived  the  first  twenty- 
four  hours,  lived  generally  over  the  second, 
occasionally  even  into  the  fifth  or  sixth  day. 
The  ancient  testimonies  to  this  fact  are  quite 
explicit,  nor  are  modern  ones  wanting,  al- 
though there  are  but  few  parts  of  the  world 
now  where  crucifixion  is  practised.  "  I  was 
told,"  says  Captain  Clapperton,  speaking  of 
the  capital  punishments  inflicted  in  Soudan,  a 
district  of  Africa,  "  that  wretches  on  the  cross 
generally  linger  three  days  before  death  puts 
an  end  to  their  sufferings." 

So  well  was  it  understood  by  the  early 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  by  those  who  lived  in 
or  near  the  times  when  this  mode  of  capital 
punishment  was  still  in  use,  that  life  never 
was  terminated  by  it  alone  within  six  hours, 
as  was  the  case  with  Christ,  that  they  all 
agree  in  attributing  his  death  to  a  supernatu- 
ral agency.     Most  of  them,  as  well  as  many 


OdU      THE  PHYSICAL  CAUSES  OP 

of  the  most  distinguished  of  our  modern 
commentators,  assign  it  to  the  exercise  by 
Christ  of  the  power  over  his  own  life  which 
he  possessed ;  in  accordance,  it  was  thought, 
with  his  own  declaration :  "  No  man  taketh 
my  life  from  me,  but  I  lay  it  down  of  my- 
self. I  have  power  to  lay  it  down,  and  I 
have  power  to  take  it  again.  This  command- 
ment have  I  received  of  my  Father."  That 
Christ's  death  was  entirely  voluntary,  sub- 
mitted to  of  his  own  free  will,  and  not  under 
any  outward  pressure  or  constraint,  is  univer- 
sally conceded.  This  entire  voluntariness, 
however,  it  will  at  once  appear  to  you,  is  suf- 
ficiently covered  and  vindicated  when  we  be- 
lieve that  whatever  the  physical  agencies 
were  which  combined  to  effect  the  death,  it 
was  an  act  of  pure  free  will  in  him  to  submit 
to  their  operation.  That  without  or  indepen- 
dent of  any  such  agency,  Christ  chose  to  accel- 
erate his  decease  upon  the  cross  by  a  simple 
fiat  of  his  own  will, — breaking  the  tie  which 
bound  tody  and  soul  together,  was  the  solu- 
tion of  the  difticulty  very  naturally  resorted 


THE   DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  331 

to  by  those  who  had  the  clearest  possible  per- 
ception of  the  extraordinary  character  of  this 
incident,  and  who  knew  of  no  other  adequate 
cause  to  which  it  could  be  attributed. 

Another  solution,  indeed,  has  been  pro- 
posed, reserved  for  modern  times,  but  not 
coming  from  our  highest  authorities,  which 
would  explain  the  speedy  death  of  Jesus  on 
the  cross,  by  ascribing  it  to  an  extreme  de- 
gree of  bodily  debility  induced  by  the  sleep- 
less night,  the  agony  in  the  Garden,  the 
scourging  in  Pilate's  Hall,  and  the  mental  con- 
flict at  Calvary.  All  these  must  undoubtedly 
have  told  upon  the  frame  of  the  suffering  Re- 
deemer, and  have  impaired  its  i)owers  of  en- 
durance. But  we  must  remember  that  they 
found  that  frame  in  the  very  flower  and  ful- 
ness of  its  strength,  free,  we  may  believe,  of 
all  constitutional  or  induced  defects.  Nor 
should  we,  in  order  to  make  out  this  solution 
to  be  sufficient,  exaggerate  their  actual  effects. 
However  acute  the  bodily  endurance  of  Geth-"* 
semane  may  have  been,  we  know  that  Jesus 
was  supernaturally  assisted  to  sustain  them ; 


332  THE    PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

they  passed  wholly  away  when  the  mental 
agony  which  produced  them  ended.  You  see 
no  trace  of  them  in  our  Lord's  presentation  of 
himself  to  the  band  which  arrested  him,  or  in 
his  appearances  before  Caiaphas  and  Pilate. 
The  scourging  was  a  not  uncommon  precursor 
of  crucifixion,  and  could  not  have  enfeebled 
Christ  more  than  it  did  others.  He  bent  so 
much  beneath  the  weight  of  the  cross  that  a 
temporary  relief  from  the  burden  was  given ; 
but  that  he  had  not  sunk  in  utter  exhaustion 
was  apparent  enough,  from  the  very  manner 
in  which  he  turned  immediately  thereafter  to 
the  daughters  of  Jerusalem,  and  from  the  way 
in  which  he  spoke  to  them.  Further  evi- 
dence that  Jesus  did  not  sink  prematurely 
under  physical  debility  is  afforded  us  by  the 
fact,  witnessed  to  particularly  by  many  of  the 
Evangelists,  and  which,  as  we  saw  in  our  last 
Lecture,  made  a  strong  impression  uj)on  the 
mind  of  the  Centurion.  The  fact  alluded  to 
is  this,  that  it  was  with  a  loud  voice,  indicat- 
ing a  great  amount  of  existing  vigor,  that 
Jesus  uttered  his  last  fervent  exclamation  on 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  633 

the  cross.  He  did  not  die  of  sheer  exhaus- 
tion, fainting  away  in  feebleness,  as  one 
drained  wholly  of  his  strength. 

Are  we,  then,  to  leave  the  mystery  of  our 
Lord's  dying  thus,  at  the  ninth  hour,  in  the 
obscurity  which  covers  it;  or  is  there  any 
other  probable  explanation  of  the  circum- 
stance ?  It  is  now  some  years  since  a  devout 
and  scholarly  physician,*  as  the  result,  he 
tells  us,  of  a  quarter  of  a  century's  reading 
and  reflection,  ventured  to  suggest — dealing 
with  this  subject  with  all  that  reverence  and 
delicacy  with  which  it  so  especially  requires 
to  be  handled — that  the  immediate  physical 
cause  of  the  death  of  Christ  was  the  rupture 
of  his  heart,  induced  by  the  inner  agony  of 
his  spirit.  That  strong  emotion  may  of  itself 
prostrate  the  body  in  death,  is  a  familiar  fact 
in  the  history  of  the  passions. f     Joy,  or  grief, 

*  Dr.  Stroud,  in  a  treatise  On  the  Physical  Cause  of  the  Death  oj 
Christ,  published  in  1847. 

\  Ancient  story  tulls  us  of  one  the  greatest  of  Greek  tragedians 
(Sophocles)  expiring  on  its  being  announced  to  liim  that  the  palm 
of  vic>3ry  had  been  awarded,  in  a  public  literary  contest  in  which 
be  wa^  engaged ;  of  a  father  dying  on  its  being  told  him  that, 
on  the  same  day,  three  of  his  sons  had  been  crowned  aa  victors  is 
tho  Ob'mpian  games. — See  Dr.  Stroud's  Tieatise. 


334  THE   PHTSIOAL    CAUSE    OP 

or  anger,  suddenly  or  intensely  excited,  have 
been  often  known  to  produce  this  effect.  It 
has  been  only,  however,  in  later  times  that  the 
discovery  has  been  made,  by  post  mortem  ex- 
aminations, that  in  such  instances,  the  death 
resulted  from  actual  rupture  of  the  heart. 
That  organ,  which  the  universal  language  of 
mankind  has  spoken  of  as  being  peculiarly 
affected  by  the  play  of  the  passions,  has  been 
found  in  such  cases  to  have  been  rent  or  torn 
by  the  violence  of  its  own  action.  The  blood 
issuing  from  the  fissure  thus  created  has  filled 
the  pericardium,*  and,  by  its  pressure,  stopped 
the  action  of  the  heart.  In  speaking  of  those 
who  have  died  of  a  broken  heart,  we  have 
been  using  words  that  were  often  exactly  and 
literally  true. 

If  this,  then,  be  sometimes  one  of  the 
proved  results  of  extreme,  intense  emotion, 
why  may  it  not  have  been  realized  in  the  case 
of  the  Redeemer?  If  common  earthly  soi- 
row  has  broken  other  human  hearts,  why  may 

*  The  shut  sac  or  bag  by  which  the  heart  is  surrounded  and  eu 
dosed. 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  335 

not  thnt  sorrow,  deep  beyond  all  oiher  sor- 
row, have  broken  his?  We  know  that  of 
itself,  apart  from  all  external  appliances,  the 
agony  of  his  spirit  in  Gethsemane  so  affected 
his  body  that  a  bloody  sweat  suffused  it, — a 
result  identical  with  what  has  been  sometimes 
noticed  of  extreme  surprise  or  terror  having 
bathed  the  human  body  in  the  same  kind  of 
bloody  dew.  Why,  then,  should  not  the 
agony  of  the  Saviour's  spirit  on  the  cross — ■ 
which  we  have  every  reason  to  regard  as  a 
renewal  of  that  in  the  Garden — have  told 
upon  his  physical  frame  in  a  way  equally 
analogous  to  other  results  verified  by  experi- 
ence? Still,  however,  had  we  nothing  more 
positive  to  go  upon,  it  could  only  be  regarded 
as  a  conjecture,  a  thing  conceivable  and  quite 
possible,  that  Jesus  had  literally  died  of  a 
broken  heart.  But  that  striking  incident, 
upon  the  nature  of  which,  and  the  singular 
testimony  regarding  it,  we  remarked  in  the 
close  of  our  last  Lecture,  puts  positive  evi- 
dence into  our  hands  ;  and  the  precise  weight 
of  this  evidence  every  recent  inquiry  into  the 


336  THE   PHYSICAL   CAUSE    OF 

condition  of  the  blood  within  the  human  body 
after  death  has  been  heljDing  us  more  accu- 
rately and  fully  to  appreciate.  Let  me  re- 
mind you,  then,  that  within  an  hour  or  two 
after  our  Saviour's  death  (it  could  not  have 
been  more),  what  the  skilful  knife  of  the 
anatomist  does  upon  the  subject  on  which  it 
operates,  the  Roman  soldier's  spear  did  upon 
the  dead  body  of  our  Lord, — it  broadly  and 
deeply  pierced  the  side,  and  from  the  wound 
inflicted  thus  there  flowed  out  blood  and 
water ;  so  much  of  both,  and  the  water  so 
distinguishable  from  the  blood,  as  to  attract 
the  particular  observation  of  John,  who  was 
standing  a  little  way  off.  We  cannot  be 
wrong  in  fixing  our  attention  upon  a  fact  to 
which  the  beloved  Apostle  so  especially  sum- 
mons it  in  his  Gospel. 

First,  then,  we  have  it  now  authenticated 
beyond  reasonable  doubt,  that  what  John 
noticed,  the  copious  outflow  of  blood  and  wa- 
ter, is  precisely  what  would  have  happened 
on  the  supposition  that  the  heart  of  our  Re- 
deemer had  been  ruptured  under  the  pressure 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  337 

of  inward  grief, — is  precisely  what  has  been 
noticed  in  other  instances  of  this  form  of 
death.  When  it  escapes  from  the  blood-vessels, 
whether  that  escape  takes  place  within  the 
body  or  without,  human  blood  within  a  short 
time  coagulates,  its  watery  part  separating 
slowly  from  its  thicker  substance.  When 
rupture  of  the  heart  takes  place,  and  the  blood 
which  that  organ  contains  passes  into  the  peri- 
cardium, it  ere  long  undergoes  this  change ; 
and,  as  the  capsule  into  which  it  flows  is  large 
enough  to  contain  many  ounces'  weight  of 
liquid,  if,  when  it  is  full,  the  heart  be  pierced, 
the  contents  escaping  exhibit  such  a  stream 
of  mingled  blood  and  ^ater  as  the  eye  of  John 
noticed  as  he  gazed  upon  the  cross.  This  is 
what  the  anatomist  has  actually  witnessed; 
numerous  instances  existing  in  which  the 
quantity  and  quality  of  the  blood  escaping 
from  a  ruptured  heart  have  been  carefully 
noted  and  recorded.  Having  satisfied  our- 
selves as  to  these  facts,  from  regarding  it  at 
first  as  but  an  ingenious  supposition,  we  feel 
constrained  to   regard    it  as  in  the    highest 


338  THE    PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

degree  probable  that  Christ  our  Saviour  died 
this  very  kind  of  death.  But  what  shuts  us 
up  to  this  conclusion  is,  that  no  other  satisfac- 
tory explanation  can  be  given  of  the  outflow 
of  blood  and  water  from  the  Saviour's  side. 
When  not  extravasated — that  is,  when  allowed 
at  death  to  remain  in  the  vascular  system, — - 
the  blood  of  the  human  body  rarely  coagu- 
lates, and  when  it  does,  the  coagulation,  or 
separation  into  blood  and  water,  does  not  take 
place  till  many  hours  after  death.  In  rare 
instances — of  persons  dying  from  long  con- 
tinued or  extreme  debility — the  entire  blood 
of  the  body  has  been  found  in  a  half  watery 
condition ;  but  our  Saviour's  death  was  not  an 
instance  of  this  kind,  and  even  though  it 
should  be  imagined  that  what  long-continued 
illness  did  with  others,  agony  of  spirit  did 
with  him,  inducing  the  same  degree  of  debil- 
ity, attended  with  all  its  ordinary  physical 
results ;  this,  which  is  the  only  other  suppo- 
sition that  can  be  held  as  accounting  to  us  for 
what  John  witnessed,  fails  in  this  respect, 
that,  pierce  when  or  how  it  might,  it  could 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRlST.  339 

only  have  been  a  few  trickling  drops  of  watery 
blood  that  the  spear  of  the  soldier  could  have 
extracted  from  the  Redeemer's  side.  Inas- 
much, then,  as  all  other  attempted  explana- 
tions of  the  recorded  incidents  of  our  Re- 
deemer's death  are  found  to  be  at  fault,  and 
inasmuch  as  it  corresponds  with  and  explains 
them  all,  we  rest  in  the  belief  that  such  was 
the  bitter  agony  of  the  Redeemer's  soul  as  he 
hung  upon  the  cross,  that — unstrengthened 
now  by  any  angel  from  heaven,  as  in  the  Gar- 
den, when  but  for  that  strengthening  the  same 
issue  might  have  been  realized — the  heart  of 
our  Redeemer  was  broken,  and  in  this  way 
the  tie  that  bound  body  and  spirit  together 
was  dissolved.* 

But  of  what  use  is  it  to  institute  any  such 
inquiry  as  that  in  which  we  have  been  en- 
gaged ?  or  what  gain  would  there  be  in  win- 
ning for  the  conclusion  arrived  at  a  general 
assent  ?  It  might  be  enough  to  say  here  that, 
if  reverently  treated,  there  is  no  single  inci- 
dent connected  with  the  life  or  death  of  our 

♦  See  Appendix. 


340  THE   PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

Divine  Redeemer,  upon  wMcli  it  is  possible 
that  any  light  may  be  thrown,  which  does  not 
solicit  at  our  hands  the  utmost  effort  we  can 
make  fully  and  minutely  to  understand  it. 
Even,  then,  though  it  should  appear  that  no 
direct  or  practical  benefit  would  attend  the 
discovery  and  establishment  of  the  true  and 
proximate  physical  cause  of  the  death  of 
Christ,  still  we  should  regard  the  inquiry  as 
one  in  itself  too  full  of  interest  to  refrain  from 
prosecuting  it.  But  would  it  not  be  wonder- 
ful, would  it  not  correspond  with  other  evi- 
dences of  the  truth  of  the  Gospel  narrative 
which  the  progress  of  our  knowledge  has 
eliminated,  should  it  turn  out  to  be  true,  as  we 
believe  it  has  done,  that  the  accounts  of  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  Jesus,  drawn  up  by 
four  independent  witnesses — all  of  them  un- 
informed as  to  the  true  state  of  the  case,  and 
signally  ignorant  how  that  which  they  re- 
corded might  serve  to  reveal  it — did,  never- 
theless, when  brought  together  and  minutely 
scrutinized,  contain  within  them  those  distinct 
and    decisive    tokens    which    the    advanced 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  341 

science  of  this  age  recognizes  as  indicative  of 
a  mode  of  death,  so  singular  in  its  character, 
so  rare  in  its  occurrence,  so  peculiar  in  its 
physical  effects  ? 

Would  it  not  also  give  a  new  meaning  to 
some  of  the  expressions  which  in  Psalms  Ixix. 
and  xxii. — the  two  Psalms  specially  pre- 
dictive of  his  sufferings  and  death — our  Sav- 
iour is  himself  represented  as  employing? 
Read  together  the  20th  and  21st  verses  of 
Psalm  Ixix. :  "  Reproach  hath  broken  my 
heart ;  and  I  am  full  of  heaviness :  and  I 
looked  for  some  to  take  pity,  but  there  was 
none;  and  for  comforters,  but  I  found  none. 
They  gave  me  also  gall  for  my  meat ;  and  in 
my  thirst  they  gave  me  vinegar  to  drink."  If 
the  very  kind  of  drink  they  were  to  offer  him 
was  not  deemed  unworthy  of  being  specified 
in  that  ancient  prophecy — the  very  smallness, 
in  fact,  of  the  incident  making  it  serve  all  the 
better  the  purposes  of  the  prophecy, — need 
we  wonder  if  it  were  only  the  literal  truth 
which  the  speaker  uttered  when  he  said, 
"  Reproach  hath  broken  my  heart"?    When  so 


342  THE   PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

much  has  turned  out  to  be  literally  true,  it  ia 
but  ranking  that  expression  with  the  others, 
when  it  also  has  that  character  assigned  to  it. 
Or  take  the  14th  verse  of  Psalm  xxii. :  "  I  am 
poured  out  like  water,  and  all  my  bones  are 
out  of  joint :  my  heart  is  like  wax ;  it  is 
melted  in  the  midst  of  my  bowels."  Here, 
again,  we  feel  that,  if  in  other  parts  of  that 
Psalm — if  in  speaking  of  the  shooting  out  of 
the  lips,  the  shaking  of  the  head,  the  words 
that  were  spoken,  the  parting  of  his  garments, 
the  casting  of  lots  for  his  vesture — the  great 
Sufferer  is  recognized  as  describing  that  which 
did  afterwards  actually  occur,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising if,  in  describing  his  own  bodily  condi- 
tion, in  speaking,  as  he  does,  especially  of  the 
state  of  his  heart,  he  should  be  speaking  of 
that  which  also  was  actually  realized. 

But  there  are  positive  benefits  attendant 
on  the  reception  of  that  view  of  the  Saviour's 
death  which  I  have  now  unfolded  to  you.  It 
serves,  I  think,  to  spiritualize  and  elevate  our 
conception  of  the  sufferings  of  Calvary ;  it 
carries   oui    thoughts    away  from   the    mere 


THE   DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  343 

bodily  endurances  of  the  crucifixion ;  it  con- 
centrates them  on  that  mysterious  woe  which 
agitated  his  spirit,  till  the  very  heart  that 
beat  within  the  body  of  the  agonized  Re- 
deemer, under  the  powerful  impulse  of  those 
emotions  which  shook  and  wrung  his  soul, 
did  burst  and  break.  If  the  bloody  sweat  of 
the  Garden,  and  the  broken  heart  of  the 
Cross,  were  naturally,  directly,  exclusively 
the  results  of  those  inward  sorrows  to  which 
it  pleased  the  Saviour  to  open  his  soul,  that 
in  the  enduring  of  them  he  might  bear  our 
sins,  then  how  little  had  man  to  do  physically 
with  the  infliction  of  that  agony  wherein  the 
great  atonement  lay  !  If  we  have  read  and 
interpreted  aright  the  details  of  our  Lord's 
sufferings  in  the  Garden  and  on  the  Cross, 
these  very  details  do  of  themselves  throw 
into  the  background  the  corporeal  part  of  the 
endurances,  representing  it  in  fact  only  as  the 
appropriate  physical  appendix  to  that  over- 
whelming sorrow,  by  which  the  spirit  of  the 
Redeemer  was  bowed  down  under  the  load 
of  human  guilt.     This  spiritual  sorrow  formed 


344  THE    PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

the  body  of  that  agony  of  which  the  corpo- 
real was  but  the  shadow  and  the  sign. 

From  the  very  heart  of  the  simple  but  most 
affecting  records  of  Gethsemane  and  the 
Cross,  there  issues  the  voice  of  a  double 
warning — a  warning  against  any  such  esti- 
mate of  the  sufferings  of  the  man  Christ 
Jesus  as  would  assimilate  them  to  the  com- 
mon sorrows  of  suffering  humanity.  As  a 
man  there  was  nothing  in  all  that  he  had  to 
endure  from  man,  which  can  in  any  way  ac- 
count for  his  sweat  being  as  great  drops  of 
blood  in  the  Garden.  In  the  rending  of  his 
heart  upon  the  cross,  his  sufferings  remain, 
even  in  their  outward  manifestations  and  re- 
sults, inexplicable  on  any  other  supposition 
than  that  which  attributes  to  them  a  vicarious 
character,  rej)resenting  them  as  borne  by  the 
incarnate  Son  of  God,  as  the  Head  and  Rep- 
resentative of  his  people.  But  whilst  the 
very  outward  history  of  Gethsemane  and  the 
Cross  pleads  thus  strongly  against  any  lower- 
ing of  our  estimate  of  the  true  character  and 
design  of  Christ's  sufferings,  does  it  not  as 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  34:5 

strongly  and  persuasively  lift  up  its  protest 
against  those  pictorial  and  sentimental  repre- 
sentations of  the  Saviour  in  his  agony  and  in 
his  death,  which  make  their  appeal  to  a  mere 
human  sympathy,  by  dwelling  upon  and  ex- 
aggerating the  bodily  endurances  which  were 
undergone  ?  We  approach  these  closing  scenes 
of  our  Redeemer's  life,  we  plant  our  footsteps 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  Garden  and  the 
Cross ;  as  soon  as  we  do  so,  we  begin  to  feel 
that  is  very  sacred  ground  we  tread.  We 
try  to  get  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  Great  Suf- 
ferer, to  look  a  little  farther  into  the  bosom 
of  that  exceeding  sorrow  of  his  troubled, 
oppressed,  bewildered  spirit.  It  is  not  long 
ere  we  become  convinced,  that  in  that  sorrow 
there  are  elements  we  are  altogether  unable 
to  compute  and  appreciate,  and  that  our  most 
becoming  attitude,  in  presence  of  such  a  Suf- 
ferer as  this — the  One  through  whose  suffer- 
ings for  us  we  look  for  our  forgiveness  and 
acceptance  with  God — is  one  of  childlike  trust, 
devout  adoring  gratitude  and  love.  It  is  too 
remote,  too  hidden  a  region  this  for  us  rashly 


346  THE    PHYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

to  invade,  in  the  hope,  that  with  those  dim 
lights  which  alone  are  in  our  hands,  we  shall 
be  able  to  explore  it.  It  is  too  sacred  a  re- 
gion for  the  vulgar  tread  of  a  mere  human 
curiosity,  or  the  busy  play  of  a  mere  human 
sympathy. 

But  what  chiefly  commends  to  us  the  view 
now  given  of  the  Redeemer's  death,  is  its  cor- 
respondence with  all  that  the  Scriptures  teach 
as  to  the  sacrificial  character  of  that  death, — 
all  that  they  tell  us  of  the  virtue  of  Christ's 
most  precious  blood.  More  clearly  and  imme- 
diately than  any  other  does  this  view  repre- 
sent Christ's  death  as  the  proximate  and 
natural  result  of  the  offering  up  of  himself  to 
God,  the  pouring  out  of  his  soul  in  the  great 
sacrifice  for  sin.  From  the  lips  of  the  broken- 
hearted, these  words  seem  fraught  to  us  with 
a  new  significance,  "  No  man  taketh  my  life 
from  me ;  I  lay  it  down  of  myself," — all, 
even  to  the  very  death  of  the  body,  being  em- 
braced in  his  entire  willingness  that  there 
should  be  laid  upon  him  the  transgressions  of 
us  all.     It  was   his  soul,  his  life,  that  Jesus 


THE    DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  347 

gave  a  ransom  for  many.  The  life  was  re- 
garded as  lying  in  the  blood,  and  so  it  was 
the  blood  of  the  sacrificed  animal  that  was 
sprinkled  of  old  upon  the  door-posts,  upon 
the  altar,  upon  the  mercy-seat, — the  atoning 
virtue  regarded  as  accompanying  the  applica- 
tion of  the  blood ;  and  so,  lifting  this  idea  up 
from  the  level  of  mere  ceremonialism,  we  are 
taught  that  "without  shedding  of  blood," 
without  life  given  for  life,  "  there  is  no  remis- 
sion ;"  and  so,  still  further  pointing  us  to  the 
one  true  sacrifice,  we  are  told  that  not  by  the 
blood  of  bulls  and  goats,  but  by  his  own  blood 
Christ  has  entered  into  the  Holy  Place,  hav- 
ing obtained  eternal  redemption  for  us.  It  is 
the  blood  of  Christ  "  which  cleanseth  from  all 
sin."  It  is  the  blood  of  Christ  "  which  purges 
the  conscience  from  dead  works,  to  serve  the 
living  God."  It  is  the  blood  of  the  covenant 
by  which  we  are  sanctified.  We  know,  and 
desire  ever  to  remember,  that  this  is  but  a 
figurative  expression ;  that  the  blood  of  Christ 
stands  only  as  the  type  or  emblem  of  the  life 
that  was  given  up  to  God  for  us.     But  the 


348  THE    THYSICAL    CAUSE    OF 

blood  merely  of  a  crucifixion  does  not  fill  up 
the  type,  does  not  put  its  full  meaning  into 
the  figure.  Crucifixion  was  not  a  bloody 
death,  it  was  only  a  few  trickling  drops  that 
flowed  from  the  pierced  hands  and  feet.  But 
if,  indeed,  it  was  his  very  heart's  blood  which 
Jesus  poured  out  in  the  act  of  giving  up  his 
life  for  us  on  Calvary,  with  what  fuller  and 
richer  significance  will  that  expression,  "  the 
blood  of  Jesus,"  fall  upon  the  ear  of  faith ! 
This,  then,  is  he — his  bleeding  broken  heart 
the  witness  to  it — who  came  by  water  and  by 
blood ;  not  by  water  only,  but  by  water  and 
by  blood.  With  minds  afresh  impressed  by 
the  thought  how  it  was  that  the  blood  of 
Christ  was  shed  j  with  hearts  all  full  of  grati- 
tude and  love,  let  us  take  up  the  words  that 
the  Spirit  has  put  into  our  lips  :  "  Unto  him 
that  loved  us,  and  washed  us  from  our  sins  in 
his  own  blood,  to  him  be  glory  and  dominion 
for  ever  and  ever."  "  Thou  art  worthy,  for 
thou  wast  slain,  and  hast  redeemed  us  to  Grod 
by  thy  blood,  out  of  every  kindred,  and 
tongue,  and  people,  and  nation." 


THE   DEATH    OF    CHRIST.  349 

"  Rock  of  ages,  cleft  for  me, 
Let  me  hide  myself  in  thee ; 
Let  the  water  and  the  blood, 
From  thy  riven  side  that  flowed, 
Be  of  sin  the  double  cure. 
Cleanse  me  from  its  guilt  and  power.*' 


Joseph  of  Arimathea  and  Nicodemus  were 
both  rulers  of  the  Jews,  both  members  of  the 
Sanhedrim, — the  Jewish  council  or  court, 
composed  of  seventy  members,  in  whose  hands 
the  supreme  judicial  power  was  lodged.  It 
was  the  right  and  duty  of  both  these  men  to 
have  been  present  at  the  trial  of  our  Lord  on 
the  morning  of  the  crucifixion.  In  common 
with  the  other  members  of  the  Sanhedrim, 
they  in  all  likehhood  received  the  early  sum- 
mons to  assemble  in  the  hall  of  Caiaphas. 
It  would  seem,  however,  that  they  did  not 
obey  the  call ;  that,  knowing  something  before- 
hand of  the  object  of  the  meeting,  of  the 
Bpuit  and  design  of  those  who  summoned  it, 

*  John  xix.  38-42;  Luke  xxiii.  55  ;  Matt,  xxvii.  61. 


THE    BURIAL.  351 

they  absented  themselves.  We  infer  this 
from  the  fact  that  when,  after  Christ's  great 
confession,  the  High  Priest  put  the  question, 
"  What  think  ye  ?"  to  the  Council,  they  all 
condemned  him  to  be  guilty  of  death.  But 
we  are  told  of  Joseph,  that  he  had  not  con- 
sented to  the  counsel  and  deed  of  those  by 
whom  the  arrest  and  condemnation  of  Jesus 
were  planned  and  executed.  In  what  way  his 
dissent  had  been  expressed  we  are  not  in- 
formed, but  having  somehow  intimated  it 
beforehand,  it  is  altogether  improbable  that, 
without  any  demur  on  his  part,  he  should 
have  been  a  consenting  party  to  the  final  sen- 
tence when  pronounced.  And  neither  had 
Nicodemus  gone  in  with  the  course  which  his 
fellow-rulers  had  from  the  beginning  pursued 
towards  Jesus.  When  the  officers  of  the 
Chief  Priests  and  Pharisees  came,  back  to 
their  employers,  their  task  unexecuted,  giving 
as  their  reason  for  not  having  arrested  Jesus, 
that  "  never  man  spake  like  this  man,"  so  pro- 
voked were  those  Pharisees  at  seeing  such  in- 
fluence  exerted   by   Jesus    upon   their  own 


352  THE   BURIAL. 

menial  servants,  that  in  tlie  passion  of  the 
moment,  they  exclaimed,  "  Are  ye  also  de- 
ceived? Have  any  of  the  rulers  or  of  the 
Pharisees  believed  on  him  ?  But  this  people, 
who  knoweth  not  the  law,  are  cursed." 

Perhaps  the  question  about  the  rulers 
touched  the  conscience  of  Nicodemus,  who 
was  present  on  the  occasion ;  perhaps  he  felt 
that  it  was  not  so  true  as  they  imagined  that 
none  of  the  rulers  believed  on  Jesus ;  per- 
haps he  felt  somewhat  ashamed  of  himself 
and  of  the  false  position  which  he  occupied. 
At  any  rate,  the  haughty  and  contemptuous 
tone  of  his  brethren  stirred  him  up  for  once 
to  say  a  word  :  "  Doth  our  law,"  said  he  to 
them,  "judge  any  man  before  it  hear  him, 
and  know  what  he  doeth  ?"  A  very  gentle 
and  reasonable  remonstrance,  but  one  which 
had  no  other  effect  than  turning  against  him- 
self the  wrath  that  had  been  expending  itself 
upon  their  officials.  "  Art  thou  also,"  they 
say  to  him,  "  of  Galilee  ?"  Nicodemus  cow- 
ered under  that  question,  and  the  suspicion 
that  it  implied.     Neithor  then  nor  afterwards 


THE   BURIAL.  853 

did  he  say  or  do  anything  more  which  might 
cjxpose  him  to  the  imputation  of  being  a  fol- 
lower of  Jesus  ;  but  we  cannot  think  so  ill 
of  him  as  to  beheve  that,  beyond  concealing 
whatever  belief  in  Christ  he  cherished,  he 
would  have  played  the  hypocrite  so  far  as  to 
let  his  voice  openly  be  heard  as  one  of  those 
condemning  our  Lord  to  death. 

Let  us  judge  both  these  men  as  fairly  and 
gently  as  we  ourselves  would  desire  to  be 
judged.  To  what  amount  of  enlightenment 
and  belief  as  to  the  character  and  claims  of 
Christ  tliey  had  arrived  previous  to  his  de- 
cease, it  were  difficult  to  imagine.  Both  must 
have  had  a  large  amount  of  deep,  inveterate 
Jewish  prejudice  to  contend  with  in  accepting 
the  Messiahship  of  the  Nazarene ;  not  such 
prejudice  alone  as  Avas  common  to  the  great 
mass  of  their  countrymen,  but  such  as  had  a 
peculiar  hold  on  the  more  educated  men  of 
their  time,  when  raised  to  be  guides  and  rulers 
of  the  people.  Over  all  this  prejudice  Joseph 
had  already  triumphed  ;  there  was  a  sincerity 
and  integrity  of  judgment  in  him,  an  earnest 


354  THE   BURIAL. 

spirit  of  faith  and  hope ;  he  was  a  good  man 
and  a  just ;  one  who,  like  the  aged  Simeon, 
had  been  waiting  for  the  kingdom  of  God,  the 
better  prepared  to  hail  it  in  whatever  guise  it 
came.  He  had  thus  become  really,  though 
not  openly  or  professedly,  a  disciple  of  Jesus. 
We  do  not  know  whether  Nicodemus  had  got 
so  far.  We  do  know,  however,  that  the  very 
first  words  and  acts  of  Jesus  at  Jerusalem 
made  the  deepest  and  most  favorable  impres- 
sion on  his  mind.  It  was  at  the  very  opening 
of  our  Lord's  ministry,  that  this  man  came  to 
Jesus  by  night.  Instead  of  thinking  of  the 
covert  way  by  which  he  came,  only  to  find 
ground  of  censure  in  it,  let  us  remember  that 
he  was  the  one  and  only  ruler  who  did  in  any 
way  come  to  Jesus;  and  that  he  came — ^as 
his  very  first  words  of  salutation  and  inquiry 
showed — in  the  spirit  of  deep  respect,  and 
earnest  desire  for  instruction.  Let  us  remem- 
ber, too,  that  without  one  word  of  blame 
escaping  from  our  Lord's  own  lips,  it  was  to 
this  man  that,  at  so  early  a  period  of  his  min- 
istry, our  Saviour  made  the  clear  and  full  dis- 


THE   BURIAL.  355 

closure  of  the  great  object  of  his  own  mission 
and  death,  preserved  in  the  third  chapter  of 
the  Gospel  by  John ;  that  it  was  to  Nicode- 
mus  he  spake  of  that  new  spiritual  birth 
by  which  the  kingdom  was  to  be  entered ; 
that  it  was  to  Nicodemus  he  said,  that 
as  Moses  had  lifted  up  the  serpent  in  the 
wilderness,  even  so  must  He  be  lifted  up ; 
that  it  was  to  Nicodemus  that  the  great 
saying  was  addressed,  "  God  so  loved  the 
world  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not 
perish,  but  have  everlasting  life."  Surely  he 
who,  up  tiU  near  the  close,  was  so  chary  of 
speaking  about  his  death  even  to  his  own  dis- 
ciples, would  not,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
ministry,  have  spoken  thus  to  this  ruler  of 
the  Jews,  had  he  not  perceived  in  him  one 
willing  and  waiting  to  be  taught.  Christ 
must  have  seen  some  good  soil  in  that  man's 
heart,  to  have  scattered  there  so  much  of  the 
good  seed.  That  seed  was  long  of  germinat- 
ing, but  it  bore  fruit  at  last,  very  pleasant  for 
the  eye  to  look  upon. 


356  THE   BURIAL. 

It  was  the  fault  both  of  Joseph  and  Nico- 
demus,  that  they  hid,  as  it  were,  their  faces 
from  Christ ;  that  they  were  ashamed  and 
afraid  to  confess  him  openly.  But  who  shall 
tell  us  exactly  what  their  state  of  mind,  their 
faith  and  feeling  toward  him  was  ;  how  much 
of  hesitation  both  of  them  may — indeed,  we 
may  boldly  say  must — have  felt  as  to  many 
things  about  Jesus  which  they  could  in  no 
way  harmonize  with  their  conceptions  of  the 
Great  Prophet  that  was  to  arise  ?  "  Search 
and  look,"  his  brother  councillors  had  said  to 
Nicodemus,  at  that  time  when  he  had  ven- 
tured to  interpose  the  question  which  pro- 
voked them, — "  search  and  look  ;  for  out  of 
Galilee  ariseth  no  prophet."  Nicodemus  had 
nothing  to  say  to  that  bold  assertion ;  nothing 
to  say,  we  may  well  believe,  to  many  an  ob- 
jection taken  to  the  pretensions  of  the  Son  of 
the  Galilean  carpenter.  In  common  with  Jo- 
seph, he  may  have  believed  ;  but  both  to- 
gether may  have  been  quietly  waiting  till 
some  further  and  more  distinct  manifei5tations 
of   his    Messiahship   were   made   by   Christ. 


THE   BURIAL.  857 

But  why  did  they  not,  so  far  as  they  did  be- 
lieve in  him,  openly  acknowledge  it  ?  Whys 
did  they  not  feel  rebuked  by  that  poor  man, 
blind  from  his  birth,  dragged  for  examination 
before  them,  who  witnessed  in  their  presence 
so  good  a  confession  ?  It  was  because  they 
knew  so  well  that  their  brother  rulers  had 
agreed  that,  "  if  any  man  did  confess  that  he 
was  Christ,  he  should  be  put  out  of  the  syna- 
gogue." It  was  because  they  knew  so  well 
and  felt  so  keenly  what  to  them  that  excom- 
munication would  involve  :  for  it  was  no 
slight  punishment  among  the  Jews  to  be  ex- 
pelled from  the  synagogue  ;  it  involved  in  its 
extreme  issue  consequences  far  more  disas- 
trous than  a  mere  ban  of  admission  into  their 
religious  assemblies  ;  it  involved  loss  of  sta- 
tion, separation  from  kindred  and  the  society 
of  their  fellow-men.  To  the  poor  blind  beg- 
gar upon  whom  it  actually  was  passed,  that 
doom  may  have  falhn  but  lightly  ;  for  he  had 
never  known  much  of  that  of  which  this 
doom  was  to  deprive  him.  A  very  different 
thing   this   expulsion    from    the    synagogue 


358  THE   BURIAL. 

would  have  been  to  Joseph  and  to  Nicode- 
4nus.  Let  us  not  judge  these  men  too 
harshly  for  the  reluctance  they  showed  to 
brave  it ;  let  us  rather  try  to  put  ourselves 
exactly  in  their  position,  that  we  may  sympa- 
thize with  the  hesitation  which  they  felt  in 
making  any  open  acknowledgment  of  their 
attachment  to  Christ. 

His  death,  however,  at  once  put  an  end  to 
that  hesitation  in  both  their  breasts.  They 
may  not  have  been  present  at  the  crucifixion. 
They  would  not  well  have  known  where  to 
take  their  station,  or  how  to  comport  them- 
selves there.  They  could  not  have  joined  in 
the  mockery,  nor  were  they  prepared  to  ex- 
hibit themselves  as  friends  of  the  Crucified. 
But  though  not  spectators  of  the  tragedy, 
they  were  somewhere  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood, waiting  anxiously  to  learn  the  issue. 
Could  they,  members  of  the  same  Sanhedrim, 
thrown  often  into  contact,  witnesses  of  each 
other's  bearing  and  conduct,  as  to  all  the  steps 
which  had  been  taken  against  Jesus,  have 
remained  ignorant  of  each  other's  secret  lean- 


THE   BURIAL.  359 

ings  toward  the  persecuted  Nazarene  ?     Was 
it  by  chance  they  met  together  at  the  cross, 
to  act  ill  concert  there  ?     We  would  rather 
believe  that,  attracted  by  the  tie  of  a  com- 
mon sympathy  with  Jesus,  the  sad  news  of 
his  being  taken  out  to  Golgotha  to  be  cruci- 
fied, brought  them  that  forenoon  together ; 
that  they  were  by  each  other's  side  as  the 
tidings  reached  them  of  all  the  wonders  which 
had  transpired  around  the  cross,  and  of  the 
strange  death  which  Jesus  died.     The  resolu- 
tion of  both  is  promptly  taken  ;  and  it  looks, 
certainly,  as  if  taken  with  the  knowledge  of 
each  other's  purpose.     Joseph  goes  at  once 
boldly  to  Pilate,  and  craves  the  body  of  Jesus. 
An  ancient  prophecy,  of  which  he  knew  no- 
thing— one  that  seemed,  as  Jesus  died,  most 
unlikely  of  accomplishment — had  proclaimed 
that  he  was  to  make  his  grave  with  the  rich. 
This  rich  man  has  a  new  sepulchre,  wherein 
never  man  lay,  which  he  had  bought  or  got 
hewn  out  of  the  rock,  with  the  idea,  perhaps, 
that  he  might  himself  be  the  first  to  occupy 
it.     It  lies  there  close  at  hand,  not  many 


360  THE    BURIAL. 

paces  from  the  cross.  He  is  resolved  to  cpen 
it,  that  it  may  receive,  as  its  first  tenant,  the 
body  of  the  crucified.  Nay,  further ;  as 
there  are  few,  if  any,  now  of  Christ's  known 
friends  to  undertake  the  task,  he  is  resolved 
— his  dignity,  the  sense  of  shame,  the  fear 
of  the  Jews,  all  forgotten — ^to  put  his  own 
hands  to  the  office  of  giving  that  body  the 
most  honorable  sepulture  that  the  time  and 
circumstances  can  afford. 

Once  assured,  on  the  Centurion's  testimony, 
that  it  was  even  as  Joseph  said,  Pilate  at  once 
gives  the  order  that  the  body  shall  be  com- 
mitted into  his  hands.  The  Centurion,  bear- 
ing that  order,  returns  to  Golgotha.  Joseph 
provides  himself  by  the  way  with  the  clean 
white  cloth  in  which  to  shroud  the  body.  The 
soldiers,  at  their  officer's  command,  bear  the 
bodies  of  the  other  two  away,  leaving  that  of 
Jesus  still  suspended  on  the  cross.  It  is 
there  when  Joseph  reaches  the  spot,  to  be 
dealt  with  as  he  likes.  How  quiet  and  how 
lonely  the  place,  as  the  first  preparations  are 
made  for  the   interment !    few  to  help,  and 


THE   BURIAL.  361 

none  to  interrupt.  The  crowd  has  all  dis- 
perse!; some  half  dozen  Galilean  women 
alone  remain.  But  is  John  not  here  ?  He 
had  returned  to  Calvary,  had  seen  but  a  little 
before  the  thrust  of  the  soldier's  spear ;  he 
knew  that  but  a  short  time  was  left  for  dis- 
posing of  the  body.  Is  it  at  all  likely  that 
in  such  circumstances  he  should  leave,  and 
not  wait  to  see  the  close  ?  Let  us  believe 
that  though,  with  his  accustomed  modesty,  he 
has  veiled  his  presence,  he  was  present  stand- 
ing with  those  Galilean  women.  They  see, 
coming  in  haste,  this  Joseph  of  Arimathea, 
whom  none  of  them  had  ever  known  as  a  dis- 
ciple of  their  Master ;  they  see  the  white  linen 
cloth  that  he  has  provided ;  they  notice  that 
the  body  is  committed  to  his  charge;  they 
watch  with  wonder  as  he  puts  forth  his  own 
hand  to  the  taking  down  of  the  body.  Their 
wonder  grows  as  Nicodemus — also  a  stranger 
to  them,  whom  they  had  never  seen  coming 
to  Jesus— joins  himself  to  Joseph  ;  not  rudely 
and  roughly,  as  the  soldiers  had  dealt  with 
the  others,  but  gently  and  reverently  handling 


B62  THE   BURIAL. 

the  dead.  As  they  lay  the  body  on  the 
ground,  it  appears  that  this  new-comer,  Nico- 
demus,  has  brough  with  him  a  mixture  of 
powdered  myrrh  and  aloes,  about  one  hundred 
pounds'  weight.  The  richest  man  in  Jerusa- 
lem could  not  have  furnished  more  or  better 
spicery  for  the  burial  of  his  dearest  friend. 
It  is  evident  that  these  two  men  have  it  in 
their  heart,  and  are  ready  to  put  to  their 
hands,  to  treat  the  dead  with  all  due  respect. 
Their  fears  disarmed,  assured  of  the  friendly 
purpose  of  those  interposing  thus,  the  Gali- 
lean women  gather  in  around  the  pale  and  life- 
less form.  The  white  shroud  is  ready,  the 
myrrh  and  the  aloes  are  at  hand,  but  who 
shall  spread  those  spices  on  the  funeral  gar- 
ment, and  wrap  it  round  the  corpse  to  fit  it 
for  the  burial?  This  is  a  service,  one  of  the 
last  and  the  saddest  which  our  poor  humanity 
needs,  which,  as  if  by  an  instinct  of  nature, 
woman's  gentle  hand  has  in  all  ages  and  in  all 
countries  been  wont  to  render  to  the  dead  ; 
and  though  the  Gospel  narrative  be  silent  here, 
we  will  not  believe  that  it  was  otherwise  at 


THE    BURIAL.  365 

the  cross  ;  we  will  not  believe  but  that  it  was 
the  tender  hands  of  those  loving  women  who 
had  watched  at  Calvary  from  morningtide  till 
now,  which  offer  their  aid,  and  are  permitted 
and  honored  to  wipe  from  that  mutilated  form 
the  bloody  marks  of  dishonor  which  it  wore, 
to  swathe  it  with  the  pure  linen  robe,  and 
wrap  around  the  thorn-marked  brow  the  nap- 
kin, so  falsely  deemed  to  be  the  last  clothing 
of  the  dead. 

One  thing  alone  is  wanting,  that  the  man- 
ner of  the  Jews  in  burying  may  be  observed — 
a  bier  to  lay  the  body  on,  to  bear  it  to  the 
sepulchre.  There  has  been  no  time  to  get 
one,  or  it  is  felt  that  the  distance  is  so  short 
that  it  is  not  needed.  That  body  has,  how- 
ever, the  best  bier  of  all — the  hands  of  true 
affection,  to  lift  it  up  and  carry  it  a,cross  to 
the  new  tomb  which  waits  to  receive  it.  The 
feet  let  us  assign  to  Joseph,  the  body  to  Nico- 
demus,  and  that  regal  head  with  those  closed 
eyes,  over  which  the  shadows  of  the  resurrec- 
tion are  already  flitting,  let  us  lay  it  on  the 
breast   of  the   beloved    disciple.     The   brief 


364  THE   BURIAL. 

path  from  the  cross  to  the  sepulchre  is  soon 
traversed.  In  silence  and  in  deep  sorrow 
they  bear  their  sacred  burden,  and  lay  it 
gently  down  upon  its  clean,  cold,  rocky  bed. 
The  last  look  of  the  dead  is  taken.  The 
buriers  reverently  withdraw,  the  stone  is 
rolled  to  the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre : — • 
separated  from  the  living — Jesus  rests  with 
the  dead— 


"  At  length  the  worst  is  o'er,  and  thou  art  laid 
Deep  in  tliy  darksome  bed ; 
All  stUl  and  cold  behind  yon  dreary  stone 
Thy  sacred  form  is  gone. 

Around  those  lips  where  peace  and  mercy  hung 
The  dew  of  death  hath  clung ; 
The  dull  earth  o'er  thee,  and  thy  friends  around, 
Thou  sleep'st  a  silent  corse,  in  funeral-raiment  wound." 


The  burial  is  over  now,  and  we  might  de- 
part; but  let  us  linger  a  little  longer,  and 
bestow  a  parting  look  on  the  persons  and  the 
place, — the  buriers  and  the  burying-ground. 
The  former  have  been  few  in  number ;  what 
they  have  to  do,  they  must  do  quickly ;  for 
the  sun  is  far  down  in  the  western  sky  when 
Joseph  gets  the  order  from  Pilate ;  and  before 


THE   BURIAL.  365 

it  sets,  before  the  great  Sabbath  begins,  they 
must  lay  Jesus  in  the  grave.  Yet  hurried  as 
they  have  been,  with  all  such  honor  as  they 
can  show,  with  every  token  of  respect,  have 
laid  that  body  in  the  tomb ;  they  have  done 
all  they  could.  The  last  service  which  Jesus 
ever  needed  at  the  hands  of  men  it  has  been 
their  privilege  to  render.  And  for  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  have  rendered  it,  shall  we 
not  honor  them  ?  Yes,  verily,  wherever  this 
gospel  of  the  kingdom  shall  be  made  known, 
what  they  thus  did  for  the  Lord's  burial  shall 
be  told  for  a  memorial  of  them ;  and  hence- 
forth we  shall  forget  of  Joseph  that  hitherto 
he  had  concealed  his  discipleship,  and  acted 
as  if  he  were  a  stranger  to  the  Lord,  seeing 
that,  when  Christ  was  in  such  a  special  sense 
a  stranger  on  the  earth,  he  opened  his  own 
new  sepulchre  to  take  him  in  j  and  we  shall 
forget  it  of  Nicodemus  that  it  was  by  night  he 
had  come  to  Jesus,  seeing  that,  upon  this  last 
sad  day  he  came  forth  so  openly,  with  his 
costly  offering  of  myrrh  and  aloes,  to  embalm 
Christ  for  the  burial.    Of  the  Gahlein  women 


366  THE   BURIAL. 

we  have  nothing  to  forget ;  but  let  this  be  the 
token  wherewith  we  shall  remember  them, 
that,  the  last  at  the  cross  and  the  first  at  the 
sepulchre,  they  were  the  latest  at  the  grave  : 
for  Joseph  has  departed  ;  Nicodemus  and  the 
rest  are  gone  ;  but  there,  while  the  sun  goes 
down,  and  the  evening  shadows  deepen 
around,  the  very  solitude  and  gloom  of  the 
place  such  as  might  have  warned  them  away — • 
there  are  Mary  Magdalene  and  the  other  Mary 
to  be  seen  sitting  over-against  the  sepulchre, 
unable  to  tear  themselves  from  the  spot, 
gazing  through  their  tears  at  the  place  where 
the  body  of  their  Lord  is  laid. 

Let  us  now  bestow  a  parting  look  upon  the 
burying-ground.  "  In  the  place  where  he  was 
crucified  there  was  a  garden,  and  in  that  gar- 
den a  sepulchre."  Plant  yourselves  before 
that  sepulchre,  and  look  around.  This  is  no 
place  of  graves ;  here  rise  around  you  no 
memorials  of  the  dead.  You  see  but  a  single 
sepulchre,  and  that  sepulchre  in  a  garden. 
Strange  nungling  this  of  opposites,  the  garden 
of  life  and  growth  and  beauty,  circling  the 


THE    BURIAL.  367 

sepulchre  of  death,  corruption,  and  decay. 
Miniature  of  the  strange  world  we  live  in. 
What  garden  of  it  has  not  its  own  grave  ? 
Your  path  may,  for  a  time,  be  through  flowers 
and  fragrance ;  follow  it  far  enough,  it  leads 
ever  to  a  grave.  But  this  sepulchre  in  this 
garden  suggests  other  and  happier  thoughts. 
It  was  in  a  garden  once  of  old — ^in  Eden,  that 
death  had  his  first  summons  given,  to  find 
there  his  first  prey  ;  it  is  in  a  garden  here  at 
Calvary,  that  the  last  enemy  of  mankind  has 
the  death-blow  given  to  him — that  the  great 
Conqueror  is  in  his  turn  overcome.  Upon 
that  stone  which  they  rolled  to  the  mouth  of 
the  sepulchre,  let  us  engrave  the  words — 
"  0  death,  where  is  thy  sting  ?  0  grave, 
where  is  thy  victory  ?  Thanks  be  to  God, 
which  giveth  us  the  victory,  through  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ."  What  a  change  it  has  made  in 
the  character  and  aspect  of  the  grave,  that  our 
Saviour  himself  once  lay  in  it !  He  has 
stripped  it  of  its  terrors,  and  to  many  a  weary 
one  given  it  an  attractive  rather  than  a  repul- 
sive look.     *'I  heard  a  voice   from  heaven 


368  THE   BURIAL. 

saying" — it  needed  a  voice  from  heaven  to 
assure  us  of  the  truth — "  Blessed  are  the  dead 
who  die  in  the  Lord."  To  such  the  grave  is, 
indeed,  a  bed  of  blessed  rest.  Buried  with 
Jesus,  they  repose  till  the  hour  of  the  great 
awakening  cometh,  when  with  him  they  shall 
arise  to  that  newness  of  life  over  which  no 
shadow  of  death  shall  ever  pass. 


APPENDIX. 

It  is  in  tlie  hope  that  they  may  win  for  the 
explanation  of  Christ's  death  presented  in  the 
preceding  pages  a  larger  measure  of  attention 
than  it  has  yet  received,  that  the  following 
letters  from  eminent  medical  authorities  are 
appended  : — 

From  JAMES  BEGBIE,  M.D.,  F.R.S.E. 

Fellow,  and  late  President,  of  the  Royal  CoUege  of  Physicians  of 
Edinburgh ;  Physician  to  the- Queen  in  Scotland. 

My  dear  Dr.  Hanna, — I  cannot  help  accepting, 
as  correct,  the  explanation  which  Dr.  Stroud  has  of- 
fered— and  which  you  have  adopted,  and  so  strikingly 
applied — of  the  physical  cause  of  the  death  of  Christ, 
namely,  rupture  of  the  heart,  and  consequent  effusion 
of  blood  into  the  pericardium,  the  investing  sheath 
of  that  organ. 

Such  a  lesion  accounts  for  the  phenomena  recorded 
in  the  Scriptures  regarding  him,  namely,  the  earlier 
than  usual  cessation  of  life  during  crucifixion,  and  the 


370  APPENDIX. 

issuing  of  blood  and  water  on  the  piercing  of  his  side 
with  the  spear. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however ,  that  rupture  of 
the  heart  is  comparatively  a  rare  affection,  and  that 
the  cases  of  it  on  record  are,  so  far  as  I  know,  limited 
to  those  advanced  in  life,  or  to  such  as  have  been  la- 
boring under  some  degeneration  of  the  structure  of 
the  organ,  a  condition  which  rendered  it  liable  to  be 
torn  when  subjected  to  the  pressure  of  severe  physi- 
cal exertion,  or  the  weight  of  mental  agony.  Now, 
in  regard  to  Christ,  we  know  that  at  the  period  of 
his  death  he  was  in  the  prime  of  life ;  and  that  as 
morally  he  was  "  holy,  harmless,  and  undefiled,"  so 
physically  he  was  without  spot  or  blemish. 

How  intensely  does  this  consideration  magnify  the 
sufferings  he  endured  !  We  see  him  in  the  agony  in 
the  Garden,  and  under  the  bloody  sweat.  "We  follow 
him  to  Calvary,  and  see  him  under  the  hiding  of  his 
Father's  face,  bearing  our  sins  in  his  own  body  on 
the  tree.  We  cannot  estimate  the  anguish  of  his  holy 
human  soul  during  these  awful  hours,  when  there  was 
drawn  from  him  that  most  touching  language,  "  My 
soul  is  exceeding  sorrowful,  even  unto  death  ;"  but 
we  can  in  some  measure  understand  how  his  bodily 
frame,  subjected  to  the  full  weight  both  of  mental 
and  bodily  suffering,  should  yield  and  give  way  at  the 
fountain  of  life,  and  how  Christ,  in  his  death,  should 
thus  literally  fulfil  the  prophetic  words  of  Old  Testa- 


APPENDIX.  371 

ment    writings   concerning   him :    "  Reproach   hath 

broken  my  heart."     I  shrink  from  treading  farther  oa 

this  sacred   ground,  and  remain,  dear   Dr.  Hanna, 

yom'S  affectionately, 

J.  BBCJBIB. 

10,  Chaelottb  Squabe, 
EDiNBDBaH,  26th  April,  1862. 


From  J.  T.  SIMPSOiT,  M.D.,  F.R.S.B. 

Professor  of  Medicine  and  Midwifery  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh  ; 
and  Pliysician-Acoouclieur  to  tlie  Queen  in  Scotland. 

My  dear  Dr.  Hanna, — Ever  since  reading,  some 
ten  or  twelve  years  ago,  Dr.  Stroud's  remarkable  trea* 
tise  On  the  Physical  Cause  of  the  Death  of  Christy 
I  have  been  strongly  impressed  with  the  belief  that 
the  views  which  he  adopted*  and  maintained  on  thia 
subject  are  fundamentally  correct.  Nor  has  thia 
opinion  been  in  any  way  altered  by  a  perusal  of  some 
later  observations  published  on  the  same  question, 
both  here  and  on  the  Continent. 

That  the  immediate  cause  of  the  death  of  our  blessed 
Saviour  was — speaking  medically— laceration  or  rup 
ture  of  the  heart,  is  a  doctrine  in  regard  to  whict 

*  Dr.  Stroud  himself  points  out  that  Russell,  Edwards,  Ram- 
bach,  and  other  writers,  had  more  or  less  correctly  anticipated  him 
in  the  belief  that  Christ  had  died  from  rupture  or  breaJiing  of  the 
heart 


372  APPENDIX. 

there  can  be  no  absolute  certainty  ;  but,  assuredly,  iu 
favor  of  it  there  is  a  very  high  amount  of  circumstan- 
tial probability. 

Let  me  try  to  state  the  arguments  for  this  view  in 
the  form  of  a  few  brief  propositions. 

I.  His  death  was  not  the  mere  result  of  crucifixion ; 
for,  1st,  The  period  was  too  short;  a  person  in  the 
prime  of  life,  as  Christ  was,  not  dying  from  this  mode 
of  mortal  punishment  in  six  hours,  as  He  did,  biit  usu- 
ally surviving  till  the  second  or  third  day,  or  even 
longer.  2dly,  The  attendant  phenomena,  at  the  time 
of  actual  death  were  difierent  from  those  of  cruci- 
fixion. The  crucified  died,  as  is  well  known,  under  a 
lingering  process  of  gradual  exhaustion,  weakness, 
and  faintness.  On  the  contrai-y,  Christ  cried  with  a 
loud  voice,  and  spoke  once  and  again, — aU  apparently 
within  a  few  minutes  of  His  dissolution. 

n.  No  known  injury,  lesion,  or  disease  of  the  brain, 
lungs,  or  other  vital  organs  could,  I  believe,  account 
for  such  a  sudden  termination  of  His  sufferings  in 
death,  except  (1.)  arrestment  of  the  action  of  the 
heart  by  fatal  fainting  or  syncope ;  or  (2.)  rupture 
of  the  walls  of  the  heart  or  larger  blood-vessels  is- 
suing from  it. 

ni.  The  attendant  symptoms — particularly  the  loud 
cry  and  subsequent  exclamations — show  that  death 
was  not  the  effect  of  mortal  fainting,  or  mere  fatal 
arrestment  of  the  action  of  the  heart  by  syncope. 


APPENDIX.  373 

rV.  On  the  other  hand,  these  symptoms  were  such 
as  have  been  seen  in  cases  of  rupture  of  the  walls 
of  the  heart.  Thus,  in  the  latest  book  published  in 
the  English  language  on  Diseases  of  the  Heart,  the 
eminent  author,  Dr.  Walshe,  Professor  of  Medicine 
in  University  College,  London,  when  treating  of  the 
symptoms  indicating  death  by  rupture  of  the  heart, 
observes,  "  The  hand  is  suddenly  carried  to  the  front 
of  the  chest,  a  piercing  shriek  uttered,"  etc.  etc.  The 
rapidity  of  the  resulting  death  is  regulated  by  the 
size  and  shape  of  the  ruptured  opening.  But  usually 
death  very  speedily  ensues  in  consequence  of  the  blood 
escaping  from  the  interior  of  the  heart  into  the  cavity 
of  the  large  surrounding  heart-sac  or  pericardium  ; 
which  sac  has,  in  cases  of  rupture  of  the  heart,  been 
found  on  dissection  to  contain  sometimes  two,  three, 
four,  or  more  pounds  of  blood  accumulated  within 
it,  and  separated  into  red  clot  and  limpid  serum,  or 
"  blood  and  water," — as  is  seen  in  blood  when  col- 
lected out  of  the  body  in  a  cup  or  basin  in  the  opera- 
tion of  common  blood-letting. 

V.  No  medical  jurist  would  in  a  court  of  law,  ven- 
ture to  assert,  from  the  mere  symptoms  preceding 
death,  that  a  person  had  certainly  died  of  rupture  of 
the  heart.  To  obtain  positive  proof  that  rupture  of 
the  heart  was  the  cause  of  death,  ^post-mortem  exa- 
mination of  the  chest  would  be  necessary.  In  ancient 
times,  svch  dissections  were  not  practised.     But  the 


374  APPENDIX. 

details  left  regarding  Christ's  death  are  most  strifc 
ingly  peculiar  in  this  respect,  that  they  offer  us  the 
result  of  a  very  rude  dissection,  as  it  were,  by  the 
gash*  made  in  His  side  after  death  by  the  thrust  of 
the  Roman  soldier's  spear.  The  effect  of  that  wound- 
ing or  piercing  of  the  side  was  an  escape  of  "bloo^ 
and  water,"  visible  to  the  Apostle  John  standing 
some  distance  off;  and  I  do  not  believe  that  anything 
could  possibly  account  for  this  appearance,  as  de- 
scribed by  that  Apostle,  except  a  collection  of  blood 
effused  into  the  distended  sac  of  the  pericardium  in 
consequence  of  rupture  of  the  heart,  and  afterwards 
separated,  as  is  usual  with  extravasated  blood,  into 
those  two  parts,  viz.  (1.)  crassamentum  or  red  clot, 
and  (2.)  watery  serum.  The  subsequent  puncture 
from  below  of  the  distended  pericardial  sac  would 
most  certainly,  under  such  circumstances,  lead  to  the 
immediate  ejection  and  escape  of  its  sanguineous  con- 
tents in  the  form  of  red  clots  of  blood  and  a  stream 
of  watery  serum,  exactly  corresponding  to  that  de- 
scription given  in  the  sacred  narrative,  "  and  forth- 
with came  there  out  blood  and  water," — an  appear- 
ance which  no  other  natural  event  or  mode  of  death 
can  explain  or  account  for. 

VI.  Mental  emotions  and  passions  are  well  known 
by  all  to  affect  the  actions  of  the  heart  in  the  way  of 

*  Its  size  may  be  inferred  from  the  Apostle  Thomas  being  asked 
to  thrust  not  his  "finger,"  but  his  "hand"  mto  it. — John  xx. 


APPENDIX.  375 

palpitation,  fainting,  etc.  That  these  emotions  and 
passions,  when  in  overwhelming  excess,  occasionally 
though  rarely,  produce  laceration  or  rupture  of  the 
walls  of  the  heart,  is  stated  by  most  medical  authori- 
ties who  have  written  on  the  affections  of  this  organ ; 
and  our  poets  even  allude  to  this  effect  as  an  esta- 
blished fact, — 

"  The  grief  that  does  not  speak 
"Whispers  the  o'er-fraught  heart,  and  bids  it  break." 

But  if  ever  a  human  heart  was  riven  and  ruptured 
by  the  mere  amount  of  mental  agony  that  was  en- 
dured, it  would  surely — we  might  even  argue  d 
priori — be  that  of  our  Redeemer,  when,  during  these 
dark  and  dreadful  hours  on  the  cross.  He,  "being 
made  a  curse  for  us,"  "bore  our  griefs  and  carried 
our  sorrows,"  and  suffered  for  sin,  the  malediction  of 
God  and  man,  "  full  of  anguish,"  and  now  "  exceed- 
ing sorrowful  even  unto  death." 

There  are  theological  as  well  as  medical  arguments 
in  favor  of  the  opinion  that  Christ  in  reality  died 
from  a  ruptured  or  broken  heart.  You  know  them 
infinitely  better  than  I  do.  But  let  me  merely 
observe  that 

VII.  If  the  various  wondrous  prophecies  and 
minute  predictions  in  Psalms  xxii.  and  Ixix.,  regard- 
ing the  circumstances  connected  with  Christ's  death 
be  justly  held  as  literally  true,  such  as,  "  They 
pierced  my  hands  and  my  feet,"  "  They  part  my  gar. 


376  APPENDIX. 

ments  among  them,  and  cast  lots  upon  my  vesture," 
etc.,  why  should  we  regard  as  merely  metaphorical, 
and  not  as  literally  true  also,  the  declarations  in  the 
same  Psalms,  "Reproach  hath  broken  my  heart," 
"  My  heart  is  like  wax,  it  is  melted  in  the  midst  of 
my  bowels?"     And 

VIII.  Death  by  mere  crucifixion  was  not  a  form  ol 
death  in  which  there  was  much,  if  indeed  any,  shed- 
ding of  blood.  Punctured  wounds  do  not  generally 
bleed;  and  the  nails,  besides  being  driven  through 
parts  that  were  not  provided  with  large  blood- 
vessels,* necessarily  remained  plugging  up  the  open- 
ings made  by  their  passage.  The  whole  language 
and  types  of  Scripture,  however,  involve  the  idea 
that  the  atonement  for  our  sins  was  obtained  by  the 
blood  of  Christ  shed  for  us  during  his  death  on  the 
cross.  "Without  shedding  of  blood  there  is  no 
remission."  This  shedding,  however,  was  assuredly 
done  in  the  fullest  possible  sense,  under  the  view  that 
the  immediate  cause  of  his  dissolution  was  rupture  of 
the  heart,  and  the  consequent  fatal  escape  of  His 
heart-  and  life-blood  from  the  central  cistern  of  the 
circulation. 

It  has  always  appeared — to  my  medical  mind  at 
least — that  this  view  of  the  mode  by  which  death 
was  produced  in  the  human  body  of  Christ,  intensi- 
fies all  our  thoughts  and  ideas  regarding  the  immen- 
sity of  the  astounding  sacrifice  which  He  made  for 


APPENDIX.  377 

our  sinful  race  upon  the  cross.  Nothing  can  possibly 
be  more  striking  and  startling  than  the  appalling  and 
terrible  passiveness  with  which  God  as  man  sub- 
mitted, for  our  sakes,  His  incarnate  body  to  all  the 
horrors  and  tortures  of  the  crucifixion.  But  our 
wonderment  at  the  stupendous  sacrifice  only  increases 
when  we  reflect  that,  while  thus  enduring  for  our  sins 
the  most  cruel  and  agonizing  form  of  corporeal  death, 
He  was  ultimately  "  slain,"  not  by  the  effects  of  the 
anguish  of  his  corporeal  frame,  but  by  the  effects  of 
the  mightier  anguish  of  His  mind ;  the  fleshy  walls 
of  His  heart — like  the  veil,  as  it  were,  in  the  temple 
of  His  human  body — becoming  rent  and  riven,  as  for 
us  "  He  poured  out  his  soul  unto  death ;" — "  the  tra- 
vail of  His  soul "  in  that  awful  hour  thus  standing 
out  as  unspeakably  bitterer  and  more  dreadful  than 
even  the  travail  of  his  body. 

Believe   me,  my   dear  Dr.  Hanna,  ever   sincerely 
yours, 

J.  Y.  SIMPSON,  M.D. 

62  QoEEN  Bteeet,  Edinbubqh, 
May  1, 1862. 


From  JOHN  STRUTHERS,   M.D.,  F.R.C.S. 
Lecturer  on  Anatomy,  Surgeons'  HalL 

Dear  Dr.  Hantsta, — I  do  not  think  that  any  intel- 
ligent medical   man  will  read  Dr.  Stroud's  treatise 


378  APPENDIX. 

On  the  Physical  Cause  of  the  Death  of  Christ, 
without  being  satisfied  with  the  explanation.  No 
other  hypothesis  will  satisfactorily  explain  the  sepa- 
rate escape  of  blood  and  water  from  a  wound  in  that 
region,  and  all  the  incidents  attending  the  death  of 
Christ  are  entirely  accounted  for  by  the  hypothesis 
of  rupture  of  the  heart,  and  the  separation  of  the 
watery  and  the  red  constituents  of  the  blood  within 
the  distended  pericardium,  on  the  puncture  of  which 
they  would  escape  forcibly.  The  various  cases  of 
rupture  of  the  heart  from  mental  emotion,  with  simi- 
lar separation  of  the  watery  and  the  red  parts  of  the 
blood,  collected  by  Dr.  Stroud,  and  also  his  cases  of 
bloody  sweat,  form  a  body  of  extremely  interesting 
illustration  and  proof,  and  altogether  the  treatise  is  a 
monument  of  careful  research  and  cautious  reasoning. 
To  medical  men  it  has  a  special  additional  value  as 
accoimting  for  incidents  which  force  themselves  upon 
the  medical  mind  for  explanation.  Those  of  my 
brethren  who  have  not  read  Dr.  Stroud's  book,  must 
be  much  puzzled,  as  I  was  before  I  had  read  it,  to 
account  for  the  escape  of  water  after,  and  distinct 
from,  blood,  from  a  wound  in  that  part  of  the  body — 
supposing  the  words  "blood  and  water"  to  be 
accepted  literally,  which  there  need  be  no  hesitation 
now  in  doing.  Of  course,  the  rupture  of  the  heart  is 
in  every  aspect  the  great  point  of  interest,  the  escape 
of  the  blood  and  water  being  of  importance  only  as 


APPENDIX.  379 

an  incident  which,  having  been  seen,  requires  expla- 
nation, and  as  further  bearing  on  tlie  previous  rup- 
ture of  the  heart. 

To  all,  Dr.  Stroud's  treatise  must  be  interesting, 
not  as  raising  or  gratilymg  curiosity,  but  as  an  intel- 
ligent explanation  of  the  incidents  themselves,  and, 
still  more,  as  a  new  illustration  of  the  awful  agony 
which  our  Redeemer  must  have  suffered.  I  was  in- 
debted to  you  for  first  bringing  Dr.  Stroud's  boot 
under  my  notice,  and  I  have  since  repeatedly  recom- 
mended it  to  the  notice  of  my  medical  friends  and 
students.  I  find  lately  that  the  first  edition  is  now 
exhausted,  and  hope  that  it  will  not  be  long  before  a 
new  edition  of  so  valuable  a  work  makes  its  apjjear- 
ance. 

Believe  me,  with  much  respect,  yours  very  sincerely, 

JOHN  STRUTHERSl 
i  Park  Place,  Edinburgh, 
Ma,y  1,  1862. 


Date  Due 

MR27 

51 

f) 

